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A SOCIETY OF SPIRITUAL VAGABONDS 
WILL YOU JOIN US? 


THE world is full of spiritual vagabonds, outcasts 
who have no set place to worship, no family pew, no 
roof to cover their souls,—indeed, not much of any- 
thing in particular, 


We are a hard crowd. We are not afraid of any- 
thing—not even ourselves. We don’t seem to know 
where we are going, and we don’t seem to care. ‘The 
reason? Because we feel that we are HERE, all the 
time. 


This is not propaganda for new recruits; that is n’t 
necessary. There are enough of us already. We 
fill all the waste places—and spill over. We sleep 
any number in a bed—that is, when we have beds. 
We have a kind of gay feeling about God. You see, 
God is one of us, He is the best of us. 


At present we are greatly scattered. The idea of 


this invitation is more of a round-up than anything 
ili 


iv A SOCIETY OF SPIRITUAL VAGABONDS 


else. We want to count noses, broken or not. 
(We ’re rough at times!) We want to compare notes, 
and tell stories to one another about our adventures in 
those waste places. But more than that: we mean 
business! We begin to believe that we have a world 
job on hand. 


Besides, when you come to think of it, there are 
a whole lot of us who don’t even know that we are 
spiritual vagabonds. We have been wandering 
around, here and there, under the stars, watching the 
sun rise, rubbing sticks together to make fire, eating 
when there was food, and going without when there 
was not, and exercising only enough to defend our 
bodies and keep them going. How careless we have 
been about our souls! They have done pretty much 
as they pleased. 


It has been only recently that we have got the idea 
that these respectable religious folks need us. We 
have always been a little shy of regulars. We 
thought perhaps they had been building churches all 
these years, just to keep us out. We thought it 
shocked them to see how intimate we were with God. 
And the building material they have piled up! It’s 
a scandal! And all the time they were trying to save 
the world, each for himself. 


A SOCIETY OF SPIRITUAL VAGABONDS v 


Yes, they were exclusive—Catholic, Jew, Protes- 
tant, Mohammedan, and the rest of them. They 
have n’t bothered us much. We like them, although 
they do seem to be fighting among themselves most 
of the time. We never had to have a creed. Maybe 
that ’s what ’s the matter with us. 


Now this is a Committee of Spiritual Vagabonds. 
It is the Committee for America. We want every- 
body in all the world to join us, and put something 
over—well, to be frank, for God, whom we have 
learned to love for Himself along in the wide open 
spaces. We own up that we have often been careless 
and rough, and forgotten God. But now we are 
aroused, and we just feel we must make good 
somehow. 


Somebody’s got to. 


The rest of ’em tried and failed. They had War, 
and Jazz. It is now upto us. We’ve been slackers 
all along. We had the idea that God was doing his 
work through the churches, and that all we had to do 
was to be gay and have a good time. Well, we’re 
still going to have a good time, if we do have to clean 
up some. We want to help these religious folks out 
of the mess they have got us all into—that is, the 
world in general. 


vi A SOCIETY OF SPIRITUAL VAGABONDS 


We cannot write, ourselves. We ’ve been too busy 
to learn, drifting around. So we got this man to 
do it. We don’t know whether he can, either; but he 
said he would try—in his own way. We told him 
to put over this idea for us—that here we are, 
Spiritual Vagabonds, scattered all over, ashamed of 
ourselves that we have been just drifting about so 
long, and wishing to make good with God. 


We are going to put America on the map spirit- 
ually, and start something with God for the whole 
world. All backsliders and strollers welcome. You 
don’t have to sign on any dotted line or give any 
account of yourself. Sinners, take places anywhere. 


We don’t know whether this man who has written 
this book has made our whole idea plain or not. We 
told him to make it snappy, and we didn’t tie any 
strings to him. He said he wasn’t a highbrow, but 
we suspect he is. He’s over our heads at times. 
He’s a trifle peevish in spots and takes himself 
seriously. But he’s sincere, and he was the best 
we could get on short notice. 


Be kind to him. 
SOCIETY OF SPIRITUAL VAGABONDS 


Committee for America. 


WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL 
VAGABOND 










PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO. 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 3 se sos@ 


Copyright, 1925, by 


THe CENTURY Co. 


PRINTED IN U. §&. A. 


CONTENTS 


A SOCIETY OF SPIRITUAL VAGABONDS . . . .« « Ill 


AS ONTENTS 1 Wicd Le Persia bla els. alg de aetna on ak eeaew ee trier NEL SE 
DESSERT oe Te eNOS Fcc) fi itl ily Rap ACORN ue Ste DRE 
BOOKS BY THOMAS L. WIASSON, cviiateadeyt cs acon nan a 
AS WORDS TOUTH EL UI ISE yi Cocke ait unti Metab leer outa 
A WorpD TO ALL SPIRITUAL VAGABONDS. . . . . XIV 
AIS POOR EM iow ahh Lier CuMiinenm ty hits. u) Chin, RON Aue eRe 
PARE METH OD LERINED vwclaiate eh loin ak ht bu Nikie Ava aha Mes 
MERMS ANDI OVIMBORGH 2 Oe uicuaite ui Maluaaeecm tos kia mene 
VAR EC EACHEIGAND AMERICA oll) si cetioat hrenie tt ya heen tn ate 
MAN JOTHES DREAMASOD\ Hit v4 su to eraiay rsuabel co edipie ina Of 
PAT ISE We (CREDA WORLD ie fee tia ho akin De leks sills syeeera Gass 
TE IVETE CTUALS © oll alg be neue city Oa sso StS RSID 
TaPCHUAD eT DESTRUCTION fs) ac/,) ell au dau ea eu LO 
REPIFIGNTANDS MYSTICISM bdo eo et heey oe meas 
Ce CINS TARTU Ot Ws oe ia ars MO ah ace re ys ad isso Nn Wrtaes | Maat ee 
Sera tORCHES fe eee LD 
THe BIBLE A ARS gay na REO REE Ste hoy at AND is 
Tel INDIVIDUAL: PROBLEM: «.) is losilaeee pe tie Dia UO 
WemenN ieee TieLPhy tit a. sb arecaa tes ocean) oe hee 


Meee TPeT AU ONT ©. ici, | 32). ete Pa he heh del paintast oe 


ix 


) as 





I have not written unto you because ye know not the 
truth, but because ye know it. 
I JOHN 2.21 


As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, 
through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are 
nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers. 

ALLEN. 


Remember the Lord, and fight. 
NEHEMIAH. 


xi 


BOOKS BY THOMAS L. MASSON 


THat SILVER LINING. 

A BacHELor’s Basy AND SOME GRown-UPs. 

A Corner IN WOMEN. 

Docs From LIFE. 

Humor or Love In VERSE AND PROSE. 

Humorous MASTERPIECES OF AMERICAN 
LITERATURE. 


In Merry MEASURE. 


LISTEN TO THESE. 

LITTLE MASTERPIECES OF AMERICAN Humor. 
THE New Puato, or Socrates REDIVIVUS. 
SHORT STORIES FROM LIFE. 

THE Best STORIES IN THE WORLD. 

THe Von BLUMERS. 

Tom Masson’s ANNUAL FoR 1923. 

Tom Masson’s ANNUAL FOR 1924. 

WELL, Wuy Nort? 

THE YANKEE Navy. 





xii 


A WORD TO THE UNWISE 


When the representatives of science, mathematics, 
or materialism deny that there is any spiritual life 
or any means of transcending the senses, they are 
convicting themselves of dense ignorance, and prac- 
tically nullifying their own logic. 

And this for the reason that, from the strict stand- 
point of logic, we cannot deny the existence of any- 
thing merely because we are not aware of it. 

It would be entirely consistent for the scientists to 
declare that they do not believe in the spiritual life— 
that is their inalienable right; but to deny its existence 
is quite another matter. 


xiii 


A WORD TO ALL SPIRITUAL VAGABONDS 


(Those who derive their material support from any in- 
stitution, any propaganda, or any school of thought must 
of necessity be prejudiced witnesses. In the world, their 
reputations for consistency and the maintenance of them- 
selves and their families, both depend upon their not 
changing their views. These views, in the great majority 
of cases, are not the result of original research or previous 
trial, but have been handed to them by others or are the 
outcome of environment and tradition. If, through some 
inner revolution, these views are changed, few have the 
courage to proclaim this fact, as their living depends upon 
their fixed front. 

The Prive or Learninc and the Pripe oF EaRNING are 
the two great obstacles that confront the seeker after Truth. 
He i either patronized by scholars or bulldozed by ex- 
perts 


As vagabonds without fixed dwelling, who search 
for God under the open sky or within the secret re- 
cesses of our own souls, we hereby renounce our 
further submission to these twin masters of illusion, 
Learning and Tradition. In sunshine and shadow, 
up hill and down dale, through fire and water, we 
deal with God alone. 


xiv 


THIS BOOK 


Is a revolt against tradition. It shows the prac- 
tical value of the independent, individual, spiritual 
life, and its absolute necessity on the part of the 
American people if we are to save our own country 
and help save the world. It deals with the whole 


spiritual problem as if it were a business proposition 
or one of domestic management, its theme being that 


religion must be reorganized from the standpoint of 
the individual. It makes no claim to advanced 
scholarship, for the simple reason that it is above the 
plane of the intellect, comprehending learning merely 
as a fractional and unimportant part of the total 
spiritual consciousness. 

‘ It is written for men and women in all walks of life 
who are in trouble and who do not know the way out. 
It points the way to peace, through trial. It is not 
written for mollycoddles, cowards, intellectuals, or 
egoists. The author has occasionally, and purposely, 
repeated himself in order to give emphasis. Super- 
ficially read, this book will seem to contain incon- 


sistencies, 
xV 


XV1 THIS BOOK 


It cannot be read hastily, with profit. It must be 
studied. It is devoid of sentimentality. And its 
teaching can be demonstrated by anybody. It dis- 
poses of the errors which from time immemorial have 
afflicted the human race. It interprets the sayings of 
Christ from practical experience, showing that as He 
lived, so we must live, without withdrawing in any 
way from the world or limiting ourselves in our daily 
lives and contact with others. It shows that real 
religion springs spontaneously from the heart and 
soul of mankind, that it is universal, that it is actually 
lived to-day by thousands, if not millions, of those 
who do not even know they possess it. It neither 
attacks nor criticizes any institution, but deals with 
all in love and charity, reserving rebuke for error 
alone. 


THE METHOD DEFINED 


The Author presents his case 


THE METHOD DEFINED 


In life there are no rehearsals. If there is a 
science or art of living, it must therefore be of su- 
preme importance. Such a science should be open to 
all, rich and poor alike, not dependent on anything 
but one’s own choice. It should admit of no doubt, 
be founded on absolute understanding. Is sucha sci- 
ence of living possible? It is not only possible, but 
certain. 


OUR SOCIAL SYSTEM 


The society in which we live offers small hope of 
affording us any solution of our problem from the out- 
side. Our educational system, as it increases in 
splendor and luxury owing to the endowments of mul- 
timillionaires, encourages a constantly growing cyn- 
icism and contempt for honest work. Parasites mul- 
tiply. In certain strata of society cosmetics cover an 
almost inexhaustible lack of virtue. 

Our idle rich breed only barrenness. Our reli- 


gious institutions, within which may still burn the 
3 


4 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


fires of true Christianity, are the prey of glittering 
humbugs. Among our doctors are the noblest and 
most self sacrificing servants of humanity. Medical 
science has done much to alleviate pain; it has 
undoubtedly checked epidemics, but it has mime- 
ographed diseases, and its total fruits are of doubtful 
value. Can it be proved that the lowering of the 
death rate in certain areas is due to anything else but 
improved hygiene? We are a favored race; it is 
difficult for us to realize that war prevails over a large 
part of the globe, accompanied by widespread vi- 
olence and bloodshed. 

Have the marvelous inventions of science added 
anything to the tranquillity of the human soul? No 
just comparison can be made with the past, which is 
an illusion, both history and science being only accu- 
mulated consciousness. The growing leisure of the 
great mass of people is occupied with the most trivial, 
if not debasing, pursuits. City slums flaunt their 
crime crop in the face of the most opulent country the 
world has seen. Gunmen and divorces flourish. In- 
decency and mediocrity have become standardized. 
If Art, Music and Literature seem to offer a compe- 
tent consolation for being alive, the reply is that the 
approaches to this trinity of the senses require so 
much time and training that few can avail themselves 
of the privilege, which is open only to the elect. And 


THE METHOD DEFINED ) 


have they not failed to afford relief to those who have 
tried them? The State breeds its illegitimate progeny 
of laws, which turn and rend it. In the material 
world for thousands of years everything has been 
tried and everything has failed. We need no more 
geniuses. We have not yet caught up with those we 
have on hand. 


THE INDIVIDUAL 


The individual is no better off. If poor, he is a 
prey to the diabolism of poverty and the mob of 
panacea-mongers who batten on the proletariat. If 
rich, he may easily live to see his wife and children 
crushed beneath the very temples he has erected to 
secure them from want. For it is one thing for a man 
to learn how to control his earned money, and quite 
another to teach this to those he loves. We almost al- 
ways overlook the truth that any increase in our mate- 
rial possessions beyond our needs carries with it this 
inevitable menace. Thus a man materially successful 
is buffeted between the Scylla and Charybdis of mod- 
ern civilization—poverty on the one hand and para- 
sites on the other. He may die before he fully real- 
izes how much of a failure he is. Yet rich men often 
do live to see their thought externalized in the vis- 
ible weaknesses of their sons and daughters. 


6 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


All systems, institutions and material accumula- 
tions founded on expediency must fail. Form is 
everything. Substance nothing. 


THE ONE CERTAINTY 


There is only one certainty, which is constantly 
present to all of us, and that is that the source of our 
‘being is higher than ourselves. 

There are times when we doubt everything else, for 
on every other subject the testimony is, or seems to 
be, conflicting. We may believe in the divinity of 
Christ one day, and disbelieve in it the next. We 
may believe one month that our prayers are answered, 
and the next month that they are not. In the morn- 
ing, as we rise and view the splendor of the sun, we 
may believe that God is a universal spirit, an es- 
sence; while at night, when the shadows fall, we may 
think of him as a person. Or in our moments of 
despair, we may think of him as a god of vengeance, 
or that there isn’t any God, and that things are just 
governed by chance. 


HEAVEN LIES WITHIN US 


But no matter what belief or what doubt we hold 
at any time, we know we came from somewhere, we 
know that whatever it is that gave us our conscious- 


THE METHOD DEFINED 7 


ness is more powerful than we are. From this rises 
the conviction that it is inside of us and not outside 
of us that all the power comes from, although we do 
not always understand how this can be. The diffi- 
culties we get into, the sorrows, griefs, despairs, mis- 
fortunes, and all the attendant horde of earthly 
miseries—including the proper understanding of 
them—are due entirely to the fact that we are con- 
stantly forgetting or ignoring this one certainty. We 
are turned aside by voices, by messages, in short, by 
the hundreds of sensations that flow through our 
minds in a constant stream. 

A friend said to me one day: 

““My mind is not so good as it was.” 

That remark is a common example of the truth that 
our minds are one thing and we are another. What 
is the I within us—or me—which enables me to 
speak of my mind as if it were a motor accessory? 
Which is it? 

This unknown I is the imperishable thing whereby 
I come eventually to attain to a sense of individuality. 


WE ARE IMMORTAL 


One of the most ridiculous assertions in the world 
is that there is no immortality. It is equivalent to 
saying that there is no heat in the sun. Measured 


8 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


by the standards of the human senses, immortality 
can not be proved any more than anything else can 
be proved. And nothing else can. Try to prove that 
Napoleon was either good or bad, that men did or did 
not descend from monkeys, or that lightning never 
strikes twice in the same place. Try to prove that 
Euclid was right, and a dozen mathematicians will 
rise up to prove that he was wrong. All things are 
necessarily in chaos, because they are constantly 
shifting their base; and their base is an illusion of 
the mind. 

Now immortality IS. You believe it or not, ac- 
cording as you have released yourself from the 
bondage of the senses and are able to understand 
spiritual values. I am surrounded on all sides by 
those who, should they read these words by chance, 
would not have the slightest idea of their real mean- 
ing. Itis a fact, however, within my own experience 
that a casual word dropped by accident will lie dor- 
mant in the mind that receives it, to flower later. 


PUTTING IT UP TO HEADQUARTERS 


What I am insisting upon, for our present pur- 
pose, is that we drop everything else but the simple 
proposition that there is a source of our Being, and 
that henceforth we will deal with nobody else. It is 


THE METHOD DEFINED ny 


only from the standpoint of the J AM that we can 
arrive at certainty. 

The next step? 

It is so plain that possibly nobody would ever 
think of it. It is to listen. Just to sit still and 
listen. Meditate on listening. 

Consider what this means. One must be entirely 
alone. One must do absolutely nothing, for to do 
anything at all is to distract one from the great ob- 
ject. The source of our Being knows infinitely more 
than we. Therefore the first step of our contact 
must be one of attention. That is so obvious as to 
need no argument. 


WE MUST HAVE HAD A CREATOR 


Can we go any further than this in our terms? I[ 
think so. The reader must follow me as long as he 
understands me. When he disagrees with me, let 
him either throw this book away, or else put it aside 
and try it again later. 

Suppose we now select a word which we can use 
as a symbol to convey the idea, even if it is a very 
imperfect idea, of the infinite source of our Be- 
ing. For the present I purposely avoid using the 
word God, because it has been used in so many vari- 
ous ways, and with so many various meanings. 


10 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


Are you satisfied with the word Creator? Does 
this word not cover the idea? What I am was 
created by some one, by some force or power. I can 
therefore say that this power is my Creator. This 
gives me a convenient, all-embracing word, untainted 
by a mass of sense associations. 

What you do, therefore, in the very beginning is 
to sit quite still, removing from your consciousness 
all the distracting influences you can, little by little,— 
for it doesn’t all come at once,—and listen to the 
voice of your Creator. 

Do you agree to that? If so, what is the next step? 

It must be presupposed, at this point, that you and 
I are perfectly sincere in our desires; that, indeed, 
we are even desperate. Also, the grand thing about 
our position now is that no argument between us is 
possible. We agree that we have been created by a 
Creator, and that, whoever this Creator may be, the 
only possible way to find out about him is to give him 
our attention, to ask him with all the passion and crav- 
ing within us to enlighten us about himself. 

Logically, this is as far as I can take you. This 
is the opening to the straight and narrow path. You 
can see that yourself. The moment I begin to tell 
you any more, you are going to begin to doubt me; 
so that the whole matter of this book would drop, if 
it were not for one thing. I am going to explain 


THE METHOD DEFINED 1i 


this in the best way I can, so you must have a little 
patience with me at the start. You must tolerate me 
a little while longer, until I either convince you or not, 
as the case may be. Of course, as a matter of fact, in 
the end you convince yourself. You try it, at first 
haltingly, and often in doubt, you drop it, you go 
back to it, and so on, until you get a little footing. 
Then you simply cannot retreat. 


YOU 


First, I must tell you what you are, for if you are 
not what I describe you to be, this book would be an 
utter waste of time. I mean, in general, that you 
must be ready to receive this book—that you must be, 
say, one in ten thousand. 

First, you are in doubt. 

Second, you are in trouble. This at times has 
been so great that you have been in the utmost despair. 
This despair has even—during certain grim moments 
—driven you into horrendous thoughts of making 
away with yourself. I am putting this in the most 
delicate way Ican. But you will understand. 

Third, your health is n’t what it should be. 

Fourth, not being quite certain of anything, and 
also made desperate by your difficulties, you are now 
in an attitude of mind where you are ready to wel- 


12 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


come anything which will give you a permanent and 
abiding sense of security. Nay, you are ready to 
welcome anything which will even give you tempo- 
rary relief. 


A PROPOSITION 


If you are what these brief definitions lamely in- 
dicate (fill out the complete picture for yourself), 
then my proposition is this: 

Beginning with the solid foundation laid down in 
this chapter (read it over and over, if necessary, 
until you understand it), I will give you a number 
of directions, arranged in what I term the natural 
order of spiritual development. Each one of these 
directions, if properly followed, will carry its own 
proof. If at first it is not demonstrated, try it until 
it is. Remember that it requires what seems, in 
many cases, a long time to take even one step for- 
ward. It took me two years to understand one simple 
segment of universal truth. 


NO SUCH THING AS TIME 


In the lives of a great many mystics, there are 
records of decades passed in groping, before light 
came. Do not let this discourage you. It is an 


THE METHOD DEFINED 13 


illusion of the senses, because, spiritually, there is 
no time.’ Einstein and others have proved this 
mathematically, a truth which has been so long known 
to those who live in the spirit. What seems to be 
time is nothing but the succession in combinations of 
matter, which is in a constant state of transition, or 
flux. All matter (I am still writing from the purely 
material and scientific standpoint) is composed of 
electrons. Nothing beyond this is known. The 
electrons have not been seen, their presence has only 
been mathematically demonstrated, and their nature, 
a guess. All that is really known is that matter (and 
by this I mean the so-called material universe) has 
no validity as substance. Itis nothing. Attenuated, 
it becomes invisible. The wonderful work done by 
scientists has shown that each form or element of 
matter has its place in what is called the atomic 
scale, according to the number of electrons contained 

1Here is a short description of Einstein’s theory of relativity 
by Viscount Haldane, in “The Reign of Relativity” (Yale) which 
may be found helpful to the lay mind: “These considerations led 
Einstein to insist in 1915 on the broad principle that the motion of 
all bodies is nothing more than their apparent change in situation 
relatively to one another. The objects which constitute our uni- 
verse will present appearances which differ in every case according 
to the situation and kind of motion of the observers with their 
measuring instruments. These appearances are the actual reality. 
Absolute position, shape, and measurement are all unmeaning. 
Space and time disappear as self-subsistent, and in their place we 


get a plurality of relative systems.” Yes indeed; and all coming 
back to the eternal I AM! 


14 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


in each one of the atoms that compose it. We must 
not here permit ourselves to be deceived or overawed 
by the astounding legerdemain of these laboratory 
experts. 


IT IS ALLIN YOUR MIND 


The fact is, they know nothing more than we do. 
All they have really done is, intensively, to dissect, 
analyze, and classify, in the most minute and 
mathematical manner, certain forms of consciousness. 
For this, they are entitled to all praise. But beyond 
this, they are just as much at sea as the humblest 
street waif. And because all this is a mind process, 
that is to say, material, and based on the senses, it can 
never get beyond itself. Many of those involved in 
it (mathematicians, philosophers, biologists, etc.) 
flatly deny that it is possible to find truth anywhere 
outside of this Realm of Reason. Some of them are 
almost passionate in their denunciation of those who 
make claims for the spirit—for instance, Bertrand 
Russell. But not all. Sir Oliver Lodge, a great 
scientist, believes in spiritualism. I do not—not at 
all in his sense. His spiritualism is merely an at- 
tenuated form of materialism, mixed up, however, 
with sublime aspirations. So Conan Doyle. There 
have been, and are, a fair proportion of scientists 


THE METHOD DEFINED 15 


who devoutly believe in a God and are very humble 
about their intellects. 

Now all of this I have just written is merely a 
brief aside, affording only a glimpse of some of the 
mental problems which constantly confront and baffle 
the curious mind. Once we go our own way, we need 
not allow them to disturb us. They will all be 
readily absorbed. Christ solved them all in a few 
sentences. This is also, however, only an aside, as 
we should not go too fast, that is, beyond our own rate 
of progress. 


BE PATIENT 


Do not be discouraged if you do not at first glance 
understand all there is in this book, as you read it; 
or, on the other hand, do not think, because some of 
it seems too obvious and what you know already, that 
it can teach you nothing. Do not jump to conclu- 
sions. We are all of us, more or less, victims of the 
total mass of racial thought which presses upon us 
from the (apparently) outside world, and this leads 
us frequently to argue, or to utter opinions based on 
nothing at all except hearsay. What I have hinted 
at briefly in this chapter will be taken up in sufficient 
detail later on. Hold your opinions in abeyance 
until you have read the book through. To grasp its 


16 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


meaning thoroughly, it must be read over and over; 
must be studied. It will repay the study you give it. 


WE ARE NOT EXCLUSIVE 


The question may be asked right here, in advance, 
How does this book differ from so many other books? 
The answer is that it offers a method whereby one 
can attain peace, alone, without any instructor, and 
without attaching oneself to any institution. This 
is by no means either to ignore or to condemn the 
churches and various other ethical societies. There 
is absolutely no restriction on one’s activities. 
There is no exclusiveness, so far as one’s ordinary 
occupations are concerned. It simply doesn’t mat- 
ter. It did n’t matter to Christ; why should it'to us? 
We cast aside the world, while mingling with it. 
That seems a paradox, but it is not. We are free 
people. We are everywhere. We are united in the 
spirit. And that is all there is to it. Furthermore, 
in every church, there is a fair proportion just like 
us. Maybe everybody is like us—I should not be 
surprised. My passing thought right here is this— 
that most of us are afraid all the time not to belong 
to something. We are constantly being asked to join 
something new. The Americans, indeed, have a pas- 
sion for joining things. We must all be on com- 


THE METHOD DEFINED 17 


mittees, we must be vice-presidents, we must be chair- 
man of something or other. Now this kind of mate- 
rial activity has been transferred to the religious field 
and the pressure is very great. 


CHURCHES? 


If we don’t go to church, there are towns in which 
we are likely to be ostracised. Indeed, joining a 
church, in many communities, is the open sesame to 
society. And that is precisely one thing which makes 
the churches so futile. They are composed too 
largely of people whose sole object in life is to be 
just friendly and sociable. Within each church, as I 
conceive it, is a small body of people like ourselves, 
who gather there to fight their desperate battle for 
salvation. That is the white spot of heat which keeps 
each church alive. This book, then, is merely a book 
for the lonely soul. | 


JUST LISTEN 


Let me now give the first direction, which, indeed, 
has been already so imperfectly indicated. 

I. Listen to your Creator. 

The answer (which seemingly may be delayed for 
days, weeks, months, or even years) is often instan- 
taneous (you will look back upon this afterward and 


18 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


agree that I am right), or, if it is seemingly delayed, 
that will be your fault. I do not mean to imply that 
you are to blame for this when I state that it is your 
fault; all I mean is that you are so tangled up 
with material sense-conditions that you cannot be 
expected to understand the first message when it 
comes; the realization of this may not come until 
long afterward. It isn’t your fault; it is your igno- 
rance. And these halting ignorances fill our spirit- 
ual lives. We keep breaking them down, one by one, 
as we advance. 

Remember that whatever message comes to you 
from your Creator is the reverse of what it would be 
if expressed materially. You sit still, alone. You 
listen to the voice of your Creator. Nothing happens. 
Wishing to be fair with your Creator, you try it still 
a second and third time. And still nothing happens. 


DON T QUIT NOW 


Right here is time for you to pause. You must be 
so much in dead earnest as not to be ready to throw up 
your hands at the first apparent failure. Two things 
are essential for this condition, as a general rule, al- 
though there may be, I suppose, exceptions. These 
two things are (A) that you are overwhelmed by 
your difficulties, and (B) that you have tried every- 


THE METHOD DEFINED 19 


thing else and are now ready to do anything. In 
short, you are driven into it. Of course, both of 
these attitudes are somewhat shameless when you 
come to consider them, for they both presuppose that 
your Creator is the very last one to be considered. 
Both attitudes imply, apparently, an initial selfish- 
ness. You are doing this for yourself alone. There 
is nothing altruistic about you. But for the moment 
do not let this disturbing thought bother you. Read 
on. It is your intention that counts in the long run. 
It will be apparent that, in truth, you can institute no 
comparison with others, and that when you straighten 
yourself out, you are in reality straightening out the 
universe. There is nothing new in this. It has all 
been said before, but it is here compressed and— 
considering the vastness of the subject—simplified 
for practical purposes. 


HOW MUCH ARE YOU WORTH? 


Now, as far as your material condition is con- 
cerned,—and this is what seems to concern you most 
for the time being,—you must have some assets. 
You may be badly off in this respect, but you can- 
not be actually starving. You may be in physical 
pain, but it might be worse. If you will ignore your 
so-called material liabilities for the moment and 


20 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


count up your assets, you will probably discover that 
you are much better off than you supposed you were. 
You will, indeed, find your assets not inconsiderable 
—perhaps enough, after all, to thank your Creator 
for. Maybe you had not thought about this. Be- 
lieve me, it is a great step forward. Indeed, it is 
not improbable that the honest list of your assets may 
astonish you. Your mind, you see, had been alto- 
gether working on the other side. Also, to get back 
to these liabilities, you may be astonished to dis- 
cover that, after all, most of them are imaginary— 
they lie in the future, and the future is always im- 
aginary. They are largely concerned with the 
calamities which you are fearful may happen to- 
morrow—or the day after. 


HOW THE MESSAGE COMES 


After you have done precisely these two things,— 
both of which require courage,—don’t you see that 
you have really got your message from your Creator? 
He has answered you, as selfish about it as you ap- 
peared to be in the beginning, in the only way pos- 
sible—through yourself. Later on, you will come to 
see that you are quite inseparable from Him. 

And that is what sitting still and listening does— 
if you are in earnest. It stirs you up from the in- 


THE METHOD DEFINED 21 


side. And it is always from the inside that your 
Creator speaks to you. It is what you actually do, 
or are made to do, yourself, which counts, and not 
what you thought, in answer to your prayer, might 
or could or would be done to you. 


IT IS UP TO YOU 


This book makes you do the work yourself. You 
are always both active and passive: passive to what 
is going to happen to you, active in what you are 
doing yourself, intensively. 

Prayer is only something which, ascending in its 
intensity, changes us and gives our Creator the oppor- 
tunity to work through us. That, always, constitutes 
the answer. We ourselves, as I have said, are part 
of our Creator. We are One with Him. Through 
prayer we come, slowly, to understand this. The 
first step I have indicated—-sitting quite still and 
listening—opens up the way. 

It is at this point that you are now ready to go on 
alone. Indeed, you must go on alone. You will 
find yourself immediately lifted up into another at- 
mosphere. You will no longer be a critic of others, 
but will begin to love them. You will no longer hate 
or scorn anybody; you will understand that the part 
of them which you have hated and scorned does n’t 


22 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


belong to them, and you will begin to see this plainly, 
because you will also see that the part you have 
hated and scorned in yourself does n’t belong to you. 
The rule is absolute. Nothing must hereafter come 
between you and your Creator. “Thou shalt have no 
other gods before me.” 

From then on, you become a student of spiritual 
thought. Every message, all ideas, your reading, the 
sensations that come to you in your daily life, are all 
put to the test. In the silence of your closet you come 
at last to know them as true or not. Your closet, in- 
terpreted spiritually, means any place where you are 
in silent communion with your Creator. 

You must never depart from this rule. There- 
after your life is changed. You still suffer at times, 
suffer intensely. You still live, in ordinary accept- 
ance of that term. But you understand. 


EVERYBODY HAS THE SAME PROBLEM 


Making our start from this outlined point, I shall 
go over other matters, personal or otherwise; but near 
the close of this book I come back to this first chapter, 
and the various problems which confront you indi- 
vidually will all be taken up, for you will be sur- 
prised, quite possibly, to learn that the problem which 
you thought your own is common to all mankind. 


THE METHOD DEFINED 23 


Meanwhile, in the chapters that follow, it is neces- 
sary for me to make a survey of the world we live 
in, in order that we may face it in its various aspects, 
in the spirit of Truth, without fear or favor, always 
bearing in mind our initial point of view, and al- 
ways remembering that, in the end, we shall return 
to it. 

But one thing more is necessary. And that is the 
question about the validity of our standard. 

And by standard I mean the gage which, through- 
out, we must necessarily adopt in order to test the 
truth or falsity of everything which presents itself 
to us as we proceed. How can we be sure that this 
gage is correct? 


Indeed, upon the answer to this question depends 
our entire salvation. If you are going to build any 
sort of structure, you must know that your foot-rule 
is correct, that it does n’t expand or contract as you 
go along. Otherwise, in spite of all your work, you 
will get nowhere. 


WE ALL HAVE IT 


The answer is this: There is a spiritual gage 
within us which always enables us to tell the true 
from the false, the right from the wrong. We don’t 


24 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


know what this is. We only know it is there. As 
you advance in spiritual insight, you will understand, 
however. The most that can be said now is that, so 
far as our material judgment is concerned, our 
analysis always fails us beyond a certain point. We 
seem to make mistakes; we involve ourselves in 
error; but it should never be forgotten that all ques- 
tions, no matter what they are, must ultimately be re- 
ferred to this unknown judge, who sits up in our con- 
sciousness and says whether a thing is right or wrong. 
His decision is often delayed. But it is all we have 
to go by. He has no substitute. The false God of 
reason is not a substitute. The most intricate calcu- 
lation of the most advanced mathematician must al- 
ways be referred to this judge, which, for practical 
purposes, in this instance we call the mind. Thus 
there is no essential difference, in the determination 
of right and wrong, truth or error, between the highest 
and the lowest types of mankind. When, for ex- 
ample, we come in contact with the most primitive 
races in the world, we find this rule holds good. A 
savage may thus be little better than a beast; he may 
be a cannibal; he may not be able to count more than 
three; but as soon as we come to live with him, to 
study him, to teach him, we recognize that he is the 
same as we are, only more rudimentary. He has 


THE METHOD DEFINED 29 


this gage. It might take a long time, but we know 
that eventually he can be released from his igno- 
rance, so that his ability to distinguish right from 
wrong will be as highly developed as ours. Indeed, 
we cannot say absolutely that this is not so already, 
for our human standards are largely based on tradi- 
tion and environment, and the most cultured human 
may be even more blind to the truth than the humblest 
savage who roams the forest. Intellect is no guaran- 
tee of righteousness. 

We may therefore conclude this brief chapter, with 
the following propositions: 

1. The spirit or force that created us must be 
greater than we are, and must of necessity compre- 
hend all that we are. We term this force our Creator. 
For the moment we must put aside all else from our 
consciousness. 

2. In order to understand this Creator, we adopt 
the hypothetical method of sitting still and listening to 
him. We try this as an experiment and demonstrate 
its correctness through our experience. 

3. There is a stable power within us, variously re- 
ferred to as judgment or a sense of right and wrong, 
which, though at times seemingly obscured by error, 
or undeveloped, is fundamental, absolute, and to 
which we can with perfect confidence refer all things, 


26 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


bearing in mind that we must do this with patience, 
working out our salvation in fear and trembling. 


It should be understood that the course I have 
thus outlined does not take away from us anything 
but unreality. It does not, for instance, separate us 
from obedience. We are obedient to our Creator, 
and he directs us on our way. 


TERMS AND SYMBOLS 


The author explains the confusion which has arisen, due 
to the mixture of the terms relating to the material and 
spiritual life, respectively. 


TERMS AND SYMBOLS 


Ir the reader has followed me thus far and we are 
now in complete harmony as to our fundamental po- 
sition and starting-point, as outlined in the last 
chapter, then a few words of explanation are neces- 
sary in order that the chapters that follow may be 
understood. 

We are on very different ground from now on, be- 
cause we shall be dealing with two forms of expres- 
sion, namely, the spiritual and the material. 

Nearly all writers on ethics confuse these two 
forms. Christ solved the problem by parables. He 
made it plain that when he used material objects, he 
did so to symbolize spiritual meanings. “Unto you,” 
he said to his disciples, “the mysteries of heaven are 
made known, but not to every one.” He discrim- 
inated between those who had spiritual insight and 
those who had it not. 


OUR DREAM WORLD 


I well remember when, as a young man, I first 


awoke to the overwhelming fact that the world I 
29 


30 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


lived in was an illusion—a dream of the senses. 

It came about through my reading Kant’s “Critique 
of Pure Reason.” The first forty pages of that book 
left me mentally paralyzed. For two years there- 
after I wandered about in a wilderness of painful 
doubt and philosophic chaos. The impact of the truth 
made me utterly powerless to read anything else. 
When finally I awakened from my meditations, there 
were vast burned places in my soul. Sitting in the 
charred remains, I began my life all over again. 
For twenty years afterward I meditated on philoso- 
phy. Never a scholar, and only a superficial reader, 
I was, however, addicted to the minute study of those 
about me. I have often thought, if my closest friends 
could have realized how I was studying them, ana- 
lyzing their motives, observing their trivial actions, 
spending long hours at night comparing them and 
studying them, trying to separate their souls from 
their bodies, they would have wanted to brain me on 
the spot. Many have often said to me, “You have no 
resentment.” They referred to some one who had 
done me a fancied injury. No, I never had any more 
than a momentary resentment during this entire 
period of twenty years, for the reason that I was too 
curious to know why people in general acted as they 
did or why I acted as I did in connection with them. 


TERMS AND SYMBOLS 31 


I never really regarded others as apart from myself; 
it was as if we were all mixed up together in a sort of 
fleshly mess. I am now referring briefly to this 
experience because it is a part of my plan to make 
the reader see what I am driving at in this book. Of 
course, we all study others; but I came to do this 
early with definite motives. A salesman’s motives 
are personal in studying others, because he is doing 
it for commercial purposes. My motives were 
otherwise. During this whole period, I was able 
to support myself in comfort without being depen- 
dent upon other people for supplies. There was 
no necessity on my part to be tied up to any one 
religion or belief. I had only a keen desire to find 
out about life. Starting out as a cynic, my cyn- 
icism was at length cast aside—as I shall explain 
later—when I was able to discern the difference be- 
tween the material and the spiritual. But during that 
period I mention, I was curious, beyond anything else 
in the way of sympathy or emotion. 


CHILDBIRTH 


Many men have confessed to me that they could 
not stand being present at the birth of their children, 
that their sympathy for their wives, and the emotions 


32 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


aroused, made them shrink from contact with the 
actual suffering. I never had any such feeling; 
neither did I ever have any feeling of sympathy over 
the illness of any member of my family. I attended 
the birth of each child with all the excitement of the 
scientific mind, almost wholly impersonal. I often 
used to wonder at myself over this apparent indif- 
ference. Yet it was not indifference. I would 
shiver with fear of losing some observed detail, 
while the loss of any one of my flock (as bitter 
experience later taught me) would have driven me 
into a wilderness of grief. But of actual fear of such 
consequence, I had none. One of my children was 
born without any blood in her. The umbilical cord 
had got twisted, so that the blood in the placenta 
did not flow through into her body. It was a critical 
moment. 

The doctor grabbed the child, placed her on her 
stomach across his knee, straightened out the cord, 
and gave her a tremendous wallop on the back. Then 
I saw the white of her tiny body turning blue-black 
with the force of the blood flowing into it. I remem- 
ber quite well speculating during that exciting mo- 
ment as to how the doctor knew exactly what to do, 
for he was young and I counted this an unusual ex- 
perience for him. 


TERMS AND SYMBOLS 33 


MYSTERY 


This was one of the most wonderful moments of my 
life. You may not believe this, but for years after, 
when I wanted a subject, I meditated on that great 
moment. 

To-day I could repeat that operation without miss- 
ing a detail. When the body was full of blood (I 
recall quite vividly a comparison with a mosquito 
filling himself up) the doctor snapped off the cord 
with scissors and tied it with a tape, leaving about an 
inch and a half to spare. For days I watched that 
cord end dry up. There was another thing. You 
know every child cries as soon as it is born—at 
least, all my other children cried. This child did n’t 
ery at first—not until the blood got in. How could 
she? When she uttered that first yell, I whooped in 
my soul, for I knew that she was all right. I men- 
tion this because it would be wrong to convey the 
impression that I was devoid of feeling. The fact is, 
I really entered into the sufferings of others. I had 
labor-pains with all my children. But I never was 
afraid or anxious about such physical suffering in 
others, or even in myself. My curiosity never al- 
lowed me to be. This is what I mean by a study of 
life itself at first-hand, and its being so much more 


34 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


important than a study of books; so much in passing, 
to clear my meaning for the reader. 


AUTOMATIC CHURCH-GOING 


One other moment, however, I must recall, as being 
in the same case with the childbirth moment I have 
referred to. And that was one day when the vestry- 
man of a church I attended confessed to me privately 
that he didn’t know what it was all about. This 
was a revelation, for the man’s devotion had greatly 
impressed me. I studied that man for years after- 
ward, reflecting and meditating about him. I 
watched him raise a family. I don’t think, in all 
this same period of twenty years, he ever missed go- 
ing to church every Sunday. He always wore a 
frock-coat and silk hat and always took up the col- 
lection. It is still wonderful to me that in all that 
period he could have kept on doing the same thing 
over and over without any awakening. What a feat 
of endurance! But I have no doubt there are thou- 
sands like him. 


THE IDEA IS WHAT COUNTS 


This example illustrates precisely what I mean 
when I say that it is one thing to be an observer of 


TERMS AND SYMBOLS 35 


certain phenomena, and quite another to be so under 
the urge of an idea. All the time I was groping in 
this world of illusion,—this dream-life of man,— 
hoping, like Micawber, that something would turn up. 
And in common with all the observers the world has 
ever known, nothing real did turn up. I went into 
mental bankruptcy, and immediately thereafter threw 
myself into the arms of a spiritual receiver. So 
much by way of aside. 


OUR VOCABULARY QUICKSAND 


Two thoughts now emerge. The first is, that if all 
the fleeting, changing world we see about us is an 
illusion,—a mere figment of the imagination,—then 
it must be evident that the vocabulary which goes 
with it is also an illusion. How then are we to 
know anything? And in particular, how can we as- 
sume to know anything of the so-called spiritual or 
invisible universe when the only terms we can use to 
explain it are those that come out of the material? 
Here indeed is a problem.* 


1 We experience, not the object, but our experience of the sup- 
posed object. Hence, since our experience is the only thing of 
which we are directly aware, there is no need to suppose that the 
object, or indeed the whole world of external matter believed to be 
independent of mind, is anything more than a mental construction, 
a species of abstraction made by mind for its own purposes from 
the concrete whole of experience. But if there is no external ob- 


36 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


I shall make no attempt to explain this now. My 
present purpose is to make clear the enormous con- 
fusion into which controversalists and, indeed, all 
writers on religion fall. Thus the whole religious 
vocabulary is a structure built on sand, and to ex- 
tract any meaning from it,—from even the most 
sincere and scholarly books,—requires on the part of 
the reader a spiritual insight which will enable him 


to interpret the meaning. Otherwise the book falls 
dead. 


SPIRITUAL PANACEAS, OR CURE-ALLS 


A second thought is this: Taking advantage of 
the universal craving among human beings for some 
certainty about God and the hereafter, for that pas- 
sionate craving for consolation in trouble, too many 
writers frankly yield to temptation, fly above their 
material vocabulary, and build up a spiritual uni- 
verse divided into planes, with angels of their own 


ject it is clear that mind must create its own objects, and we are 
accordingly forced to the view that experience is a self-determining 
and self-creating activity, which is both self-begetting and self- 
begotten. And, since whatever is real must be of this type, it fol- 
lows that reality is a universal Mind or Spirit which creates alike 
itself and its environment. From—‘Introduction to Modern Philos- 
ophy,” by C. E. M. Joad (Oxford). 


TERMS AND SYMBOLS 37 


manufacture—all this constructed from their material 
Imaginations. We read in the Bible that no man 
shall see the face of God. Among all this literature, 
we are here on a very delicate ground of criticism, 
for much of it is painstaking and admirable. For 
emotional people with lively fancies, however, it is 
easy to build up a hierarchy of angels. On the other 
hand, a genuine spiritual experience can be trans- 
lated into meaning in no other way except through 
material images. We see this difficulty all through 
the rhapsodies of the mystics—the Song of Solomon 
is a good example. I mention it here because it is 
important to understand it. A spiritual experience 
is valid only when it produces results—that is, brings 
forth fruit. Each individual has a logical right to 
vision for himself his own spiritual experience, put- 
ting it into terms which he himself can use as recall- 
ing previous illuminations. ‘That is the most he can 
do. Swedenborg, who had a scientific training, de- 
fined his spiritual experience in terms of the actual. 
His writing is very beautiful. To those who under- 
stand spiritual development, not only is there nuthing 
shocking about it, but it is quite understandable. At 
the same time, the novice should be chary about tak- 
ing it as a guide. I refer the reader to Sweden- 
borg’s works. 


38 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


MATERIALISM VS. IDEALISM 


I may say quite frankly that between these two ex- 
tremes—the gross materialist and the get-rich-quick 
spiritual healer—lI was, in common with many others, 
disgusted. And one of the purposes for which this 
book is written is to make plain that there is but 
one straight path to spiritual freedom and peace, and 
that it is along the line I have indicated and will de- 
fine more clearly in the end. In short, we must take 
nobody’s word; we must work the thing out for 
ourselves. 


NO ONE ELSE CAN DO IT FOR US 


When Christ accosted the man who sat by the side 
of the pool and who had suffered from an infirmity 
for thirty-eight years, and asked him if he wanted to 
be made whole, what did the man reply? He said, 
in effect, that he had been lying there for so long, 
waiting for some one to help him to the pool, but they 
all passed by or crowded him out. I purposely use 
modern language to explain this incident. Christ 
said to him, “Get up,” and the man, doubtless to his 
own astonishment as well as that of others, immedi- 
ately got up and walked away. Now this is a per- 
fect example of what I mean. We are all waiting 
for some one to help us to the pool. We gather in- 


TERMS AND SYMBOLS 39 


firmity as we wait. We like it. We are mollycod- 
dles. We expect to be carried about. There isn’t 
one of us who, if he really desires to do so, cannot get 
up and walk off and be free. It lies within us. We 
are a part of God. “I have no power in myself,” 
said Christ, “but only from the Father.” Is not 
this plain? We must resist the softening tendencies 
of the age we live in. These tendencies exist in the 
churches, as well as outside. When the preachers 
ceased talking about hell, the church declined; not 
necessarily because the hell-fire they taught was real, 
in the sense they taught it, but because it is very real 
in the sense I mean. If this is not so, how do you 
account for the immense number of suicides and 
marital troubles, for the evident unrest and unhappi- 
ness? Believe me, hell is very real. 

To understand my meaning here, we must first 
sternly discard all the material evidence,—books, 
personalities, everything that comes to us through the 
senses,—and little by little get our understanding 
clear. In order that in the end we may come to this 
understanding unfettered, I shall, in the few chapters 
following, present a superficial description of the 
world we live in (the world of illusion), first making 
plain, as I hope, the Peace and War problem before 
America, and then going on to the individual life, 
dealing with Man as a Dream God. In these chap- 


40 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


ters I shall use the ordinary vocabulary of sense life 
mingled with spiritual meanings, the distinction be- 
tween the two, being, I think, quite clear to the aver- 
age intelligence, like myself. In stating this, how- 
ever, it is only fair to say that having given myself 
so much close thought and for many years to this 
text, it really demands the close attention of readers. 


CHRIST 


On the threshold of this our joyful, but necessarily 
slow emergence from the darkness of the material 
shadow-dream into the light of Reality, and keeping 
constantly in mind our rigid unrelaxed scrutiny of 
every intruder upon our thought, it may now be 
asked, What of Christ? If, as the reader will see, I 
quote Him constantly in these pages, and if my whole 
book is based upon His life and teaching, how can He 
be proved to the lonely, vagabond soul in the same 
way in which we are logically bound to acknowledge 
a Creator? My reply to this blunt question is simple 
and absolute. Christ proves Himself. The Christ 
spirit rises up out of the spiritual consciousness as 
inevitably as the sun in the heavens. No theology, 
no philosophy or critical exegesis can for a moment 
blur the sense of His miracles or divinity to those 
who seek Him in the true spirit of humility. 


WAR, PEACE, AND AMERICA 


The author abandons for the moment the individual and 
texiual point of view and takes up the question of country. 
He shows how the idea of peace has become so misunder- 
stood, and what real peace is. This chapter is designed to 
go the other extreme, from the problem of the individual 
to the problem of America. Later on will be shown the 
tie that binds the two together. 


WAR, PEACE, AND AMERICA 


OnE of the most curious paradoxes of modern 
thought is this: What Christ said is generally ad- 
mitted to be true, yet when any suggestion is made that 
by following Him the world will be saved, it is im- 
mediately met with jeering and contempt. This al- 
ways happens if any man declares that war can be 
stopped by religion. The reason for this is due en- 
tirely to the confusion of terms. What religion is to 
one man is exactly opposite to what it is to another 
man. 

If religion is regarded as a vast network of ec- 
clesiastical politics, organized and controlled by 
efficiency hypocrites, then no wonder it is said that 
religion will not stop war. Real religion, as I shall 
make plain, is no such thing. 


AN UNSTABLE WORLD 


What has recently happened in the world is very 
evident to the close observer. Material inventions 
have outstripped spiritual development. Unless 

43 


44 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


spiritual harmony can be restored,—as it will be,— 
America and Europe both will destroy themselves. 
That is the bare fact. 

War cannot be cured by inventing something to 
cure it, nor by committees. It can only be cured by 
a long, patient process dealing with individuals. All 
progress worth while has come through single indi- 
viduals. In the present instance, individuals must 
gradually be converted to the true religion, to a right 
knowledge of a real God. As this spirit of conver- 
sion spreads, the thing will grow by its own momen- 
tum; then everybody in the world will wonder why it 
took so long. War will die. 


EVERY-DAY LIFE SHOWS IT 


If you live in a small community, or even in a 
city where you are surrounded by a number of friends 
and acquaintances, you will see what a wonderful 
asset you have in this communion with all these 
friends. If you will go back in your mind—well, 
say historically—to old days, you will see that this 
modern atmosphere of harmony is much more clearly 
defined than of old. Manners are better, courtesy is 
more prevalent. 

Furthermore, this community of yours is on 
friendly terms with all the other adjacent commun- 


WAR, PEACE, AND AMERICA AS 


ities. You are not at war, you never could be at war. 
The war problem, so far as you are concerned, has 
been settled. 

This will eventually be the condition of the world. 

That, of course, is only one angle from which the 
picture can be viewed. It leaves out all the well- 
known evils of the day. It merely reveals a section 
of the true spirit of humanity, dwelling together in 
peace and harmony. It shows that this is the 
permanent idea, while the other ideas are fleeting. 


THE MATERIALISTS HAVE FAILED US 


Let us consider for a moment the question of war 
and peace. If all the best men in the world who have 
been working to make the world more comfortable— 
the scientists, the biologists, the inventors, the medi- 
cal pioneers, etc.—have been working all these 
centuries to make the world what it is, and if we all 
admit that, materially it is a marvelous world, 
what use is it going to be to us if, at any moment, we 
may be thrown into another world war which will 
destroy us? 

The most that it would be possible for all these 
wonderful men to do would be make a world so full 
of devices that we should all be physically happy for 
say, an average of sixty years each. If that is what 


46 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


they have all been trying for, we can take off our hats 
to them and salute them as magicians. 

But how about that war? 

The Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill, one of the most 
eminent British statesmen, after going on to show 
the horrors of poison gas and the possibility of pes- 
tilences “methodically prepared and deliberately 
launched upon man and beast,” has this to say about 
war: 


It is evident that whereas an equally contested war under 
such conditions might work the ruin of the world and cause 
an immeasurable diminution of the human race, the pos- 
session by one side of some overwhelming scientific advan- 
tage would lead to the complete enslavement of the unwary 
party. Not only are the powers now in the hand of man 
capable of destroying the life of nations, but for the first 
time they afford to one group of civilized men the op- 
portunity of reducing their opponents to absolute help- 
lessness. 

In barbarous times, superior martial virtues—physical 
strength, courage, skill, discipline—were required to se- 
cure such supremacy; and in the hard evolution of man- 
kind, the best and fittest stocks came to the fore. 

But no such saving guarantee exists to-day. There is no 
reason why a base, degenerate, immoral race should not 
make an enemy far above them in quality the prostrate ob- 
ject of their caprice or tyranny, simply because they hap- 
pened to be possessed at a given moment of some new death- 


WAR, PEACE, AND AMERICA AT 


dealing or terror-working process and were ruthless in its 
employment. The liberties of men are no longer to be 
guarded by their natural qualities, but by their dodges; and 
superior virtue and valor may fall an easy prey to the latest 
diabolical trick. 


WHY NOT GIVE GOD A CHANCE? 


If this does not mean that materialism has failed to 
advance the human race one iota on the road to happi- 
ness,—a happiness even purely material,—what does 
it mean? Why are nations so restless to-day all 
over the world? Does not each inhabitant know in 
his heart that war is always possible? 

If then, materialism has failed to find a cure for 
itself, why does it scoff because we, who have tried 
spiritual means and know they cannot fail, venture 
to suggest that real religion is the cure? If these 
gentlemen have nothing better to offer us than what 
they have already presented us with, is it not high 
time that they now take a back seat, and give God a 
chance? There are some of us who would be willing 
to be crucified over again—however inconvenient 
that might be—if by so submitting, we could dem- 
onstrate to the majority the fact that real Christian- 
ity began the moment when Jesus was turned out of 
the synagogue. 


48 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


PEACE, A MISNOMER 


I have stated that there is a confusion in terms. 
Let us consider peace for a moment. 

Few know what peace really is. Peace is not 
necessarily an illusion; it is only a misnomer, a term 
wrongly applied. The ordinary condition in any 
country, when we are pleased to say that it is at 
peace, is really one of warfare. 

All the elements within that country are at war 
with one another, in greater or lesser degree; the pro- 
letarian is fighting with the plutocrat; the fanatic, with 
the conservative; vice, with virtue. Each element, 
indeed, is striving to assert its own mastery over all 
the others, or, perhaps, fighting to maintain its own 
existence. More human beings are killed in peace 
than in war. Thus we have warfare when the nation 
as a whole is declared to be at peace. But when the 
nation is declared to be at war, all of these elements 
unite temporarily for a common purpose, this union 
being a gradual one in proportion as the pressure of 
the war increases. 


THE INVISIBLE 


But much deeper than this union of material things 
in such a nation during a war in which it may be 


WAR, PEACE, AND AMERICA 49 


fighting for its life is the union of its invisible ele- 
ments, producing a constantly deeper spiritual peace 
in proportion to the common spiritual peril. When 
several nations—as, for example, during the war, and 
even since—are in various stages of this inward 
peace, from the historical, biological, psychological, 
and ethical standpoints it is well worth while to study 
and compare them. We shall, if so we will, obtain 
from this comparison a deep personal application. 

Britain knew instinctively and instantly there could 
be no peace for her without joining France and Bel- 
gium; and the sense of Britain’s great peace grew 
upon her as the war continued. And how was it 
with us? Think of the days, the weeks, the months, 
the years, after the Lusitania—and shudder for 
America’s spirit of real peace, that began to come 
over us only after the declaration of war. 


RIGHT AND WRONG 


Peace as I have defined it, whether it be individual 
or national, is nothing after all but the consciousness 
of having fulfilled the moral law. In plain terms, it 
is only doing what we feel to be right; and this 
question of what is right, as Kant has so plainly 
pointed out, is a priori. In reality, it is the founda- 
tion of all character. It is entirely independent of 


50 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


any process of reason. No sophistry affects it; 
every man, no matter how low in the scale, Kant 
shows quite clearly, has this sense of right and wrong; 
and the most abandoned criminal understands his 
errors as plainly as the clergyman who exhorts him. 


RIGHT AND WRONG 


Furthermore the question of right or wrong, so far 
as a nation is concerned, is one which cannot be de- 
termined by any individual. It is an abstract ques- 
tion. It is not a question, on the one hand of pacif- 
ism, and on the other of imperialism or commercial- 
ism, but of what the nation feels as a whole. Most 
of us are ready to believe now that, in our civil war, 
the North was right, and we rejoice in the preserva- 
tion of the Union and consider the sacrifices made 
inevitable. There are still, probably, a few who do 
not believe this. So with our world war and the part 
of America. These differences, however are of no 
moment. What we are now most concerned about 
is to see what war really is and its relationship to 
peace. 

Psychologists and physicians who are interested in 
the redemption of patients afflicted with certain per- 
verse habits tell us that the first condition preceding 
the cure is to get the patient into a mental condition 


WAR, PEACE, AND AMERICA ol 


where he wants to be cured: that is to say, he must 
surrender his obsession. After that, the way is open 
to a cure. In short, he must first get a foothold on 
the moral law, which is always present. Peace, 
therefore, in its broadest human application, is only 
the tranquillity which comes with the gradual ac- 
complishment of the right thing, and that “peace that 
passeth all understanding” is only the perfect co- 
ordination of the human will with the moral law. 
The material part, as we shall see, rapidly fades. 


THE ULTIMATE 


Thus we move along in the great scale of con- 
sciousness, from the vast struggle of particles,— 
whether those particles be within the organism of a 
single individual, or whether they be masses of hu- 
man units in a group of nations,—up to the final 
reconcilement of all things, the ultimate simplicity. 
It is this eternal peace which men look forward to 
and term variously Nirvana or Utopia or the brother- 
hood of man, according to their environment. It is 
the final nothingness which inspires the idealistic 
Socialist to dream his dreams—the hope of the 
fanatic, the philosopher, the reformer, the passion- 
ate pleader for the so-called rights of man. And, 
like beads upon an ascending wire, in the order of 


52 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


their inward tranquillity, in the order in which they 
have sacrificed themselves for this eternal peace, were 
strung the nations of the world in the Great War. 
The process is always going on; it is the law of the 
microcosm as well as the solar system. But, like the 
common miracles of life, the sense of its presence is 
usually lost upon us. It only happens that, in what 
we may regard as the most dramatic period of the 
world’s history, we have so recently been the specta- 
tors of the almost visible action of this great law. 
The mists were cleared away for one chronological 
moment, and we saw England, France, Russia, Bel- 
gium, America—each one of them an individual unit 
magnified millions of times—in spiritual action, 
their palpitating souls visibly working. It was a rare 
spectacle, and we must not lose the vision of it until 
the application has come home to each one of us. 


GIVING UP! 


Peace, therefore, as I have ventured to define it, 
is always based upon sacrifice. And what is sacri- 
fice? Sacrifice implies the relinquishment of that 
which we hold most dear; it is the sloughing off of 
material things we have hitherto deemed indispen- 
sable; and it is a curious and interesting commentary 
upon human actions that sacrifice is rarely voluntary. 


WAR, PEACE, AND AMERICA 93 


When sacrifice is made, it is made in obedience to a 
higher motive. Abraham at the command of God 
makes ready to sacrifice his son Isaac—but it is 
always at the command of God and in response to an 
a priori impulse emanating from the moral law 
within. So we sent forth our sons to battle, because 
that transcendent idea of eternal peace laid upon 
every man the stern duty. We say there can be no 
peace with dishonor. One has only to witness the 
discomfort of the so-called slacker, whom God 
touches with this divine wand of sacrifice and awakens 
him, as he struggles with the new impulse, to see that 
we are the victims of an inexorable fate, compelled 
gradually, and upon an ascending scale, to yield up 
our identity to a higher law. 


SUFFERING 


I should like to call attention to a very simple fact 
which may not hitherto have occurred to my readers, 
and yet which it only requires a little reflection and 
comparison to prove. And that is that we never ex- 
perience the same kind of suffering twice, although 
the causes in succession may, so far as their outward 
content is concerned, be identical. Suppose a father 
has twin sons who have grown up together to that 
age when their promise of life in its highest aspects 


54 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


is about to be realized, and then one of them dies. 
The father, to whom this grief comes as a sudden 
shock, and who, so to speak, is entirely untrained in 
this peculiar sorrow, will live through an experience 
which little by little, and by just so much as this ex- 
perience is of value to him, lifts him up to an entirely 
new level of spiritual consciousness. The spirit of 
resignation over his loss will gradually be succeeded 
by a much loftier conception of God and the uni- 
verse. But what, then, if the other son goes? The 
father will be utterly incapable of living over his 
former suffering. Something has happened to draw 
him closer to God. 

The realization and understanding of this great 
law of discipline—that the trial, which at the time 
we so passionately resent, not only can never occur 
again in just that way, but that it must have happened 
once in order to secure us forever against its rep- 
etition—is by far the most important development 
which can come to the moral consciousness of any 
human being. We stand abashed before its work- 
ing, like children in the presence of some great 
natural force, seen for the first time. And it was the 
innate consciousness that this great law is as good 
for nations as for individuals which gave the Allies 
the power to fight on, and bred a deep sense of eternal 


WAR, PEACE, AND AMERICA 59 


peace in the hearts of those engaged in this titantic 
conflict. 

They say, indeed, that history repeats itself. Only 
in its outward forms and sequences—never in its 
internal values. We have come to learn, out of the 
vast historical sweep of sorrow and bloody death, 
that the individual does not count, and that the eternal 
ideas with which God has builded his universe can 
only come home to us when, through constantly en- 
forced new sacrifices, our spiritual eyesight becomes 
trained to the great natural features in the landscape 
of the moral law. 


IT IS NOT ALL LOST 


Is it easy for the common man to understand all 
this? It is not only easy, but inevitable. Be as- 
sured that for every human life sacrificed, either on 
the field of battle or in the depths of the ocean, the 
new sense of eternal liberty for all men will be 
strengthened. Every hero who went to his death is 
like a deposit in this bank of liberty, drawing eternal 
interest for posterity. For one thing, distinctions 
are leveled in astonishing ways hitherto deemed 
impossible. This may be difficult for some to see; 
but it is true. 


06 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


GERMANY 


Meanwhile, we Americans, taking stock of our 
own souls, having felt ourselves exultantly at last 
drawn into a world struggle because we divinely real- 
ized that it was the only way we could be at peace 
with ourselves—we say, What was Germany? 

Who was this power of evil rising over the con- 
sciousness of the world like a hideous miasma, chok- 
ing us with horror? What was, and is, Germany? 

To understand Germany, we must know ourselves. 
It is useless to accuse her as if she were a common 
criminal. Out of our vocabulary comes life. Ger- 
many (as we all are) is only the inevitable outcome 
of a previous vocabulary. The indissoluble union 
of Abraham Lincoln, “of the people, for the people, 
by the people,” is the America of to-day. The blood- 
and-iron rule of Bismarck resulted in the Prussia of 
the war. Words are corner-stones of empires. We 
have only to apply this law to our individual lives to 
see how it works. Whatever we are, we can trace 
back to words fixing themselves long ago as form- 
ule in our consciousnesses. 

Now as to what we think Germany was. On the 
surface we say that she was Prussianized—that is, 
possessed of the evil spirit of militarism. We 
started out in 1914 with the nonchalant thought that 


WAR, PEACE, AND AMERICA o7 


Germany was a bad neighbor and would, therefore, 
have to be disposed of. When she was not so easily 
disposed of as we had thought, then a great fear came 
into our hearts that perhaps she could not be dis- 
posed of. Germany, so far as our psychology was 
concerned, was like a bad habit which had all uncon- 
sciously grown upon us until we gradually waked up 
to the fact that unless we could conquer her, she would 
utterly possess us. That made us desperate, and a 
dual danger came over us. First, Germany, as a bad 
habit, was always breaking out in new places. When 
we thought that the ordinary horrors she offered us 
were surely the end of her capacity for horrors, then 
she offered us new ones. Rheims and Louvain were 
succeeded by the Zeppelin raids, to which, with a 
mocking satire, we attached the phrase “women and 
children first.” And then the massing of prisoners 
in the front ranks, the gas attacks, the slavery of 
women, the murder of Edith Cavell—all the array of 
frightfulness—kept us occupied with new sensations. 


OUR GREATEST ENEMY 


Second, we began to realize that it was as much due 
to our own weaknesses as it was to Germany’s strength 
that she was winning for so long against us. In short, 
the more we struggled to overcome Germany, the more 


58 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


it became evident to us that we were struggling to 
overcome ourselves. And so now we begin to see, 
just as in the beginning we saw that the thing we 
called war was in reality peace—now we begin to 
see that the war we must ultimately win was a war 
not against Germany, but against ourselves. [If this 
is not so, then we are now unconsciously preparing 
ourselves for another war. Consider! Germany is 
an illusion of the human mind. There is no Ger- 
many, as we have come to hear it said there was. 
There were only our own weaknesses. We have 
but to confront these weaknesses for a moment to 
understand that, if they had not been present, there 
would have been no war and no Germany, in the 
sense that we have come to believe Germany is to- 
day. And by “we” I mean, of course, the Allies; for 
I do not believe that any real American who has 
thought and felt the war from the beginning could 
have had any other idea of his country, as being 
apart from the struggle, however much, outwardly, 
he may have considered it temporarily expedient to 
acquiesce in a surface neutrality. 

Germany, therefore, never has been, nor is she at 
all to-day, what we think she is. Germany is in- 
cidental to our own main purpose, which is to con- 
quer ourselves. We have but to think of the sort of 
things that have been going on since the war broke 


WAR, PEACE, AND AMERICA 29 


out, to realize in the gigantic world-scheme the deep 
necessity of Germany: conscription—income level- 
ing—woman’s work—the purification of government 
leadership—the awakening of the Colonies—the com- 
ing freedom of Ireland. Thus much for Britain. 
And consider Russia. Consider also the new na- 
tionalism that has sprung into life almost overnight 
in this country. It is all an impressive list. Not 
until the social consciousness of the world has been 
forced up to a new level, and this as a permanent con- 
tribution to posterity, can the thing we call Germany 
be conquered. That is why we are having such a 
hard time doing it. We ought to. It is the only way 
that mankind can be regenerated. 


WHERE THE WEAKNESS DWELLS 


Lord Roberts, for eight years calling upon Britain 
to prepare and hooted out of lecture-halls, was like the 
admonishing voice of conscience which says, “Look 
to yourself.” Yet I repeat, for emphasis, what we 
must come clearly to understand is that, whether we 
think as a nation or as an individual, the object of our 
preparation is not so much to defend ourselves against 
a common enemy as to overcome our own weaknesses. 
Mere physical equipment, guns and ammunition, 
are of no consequence except as a pitiful symbol of 


60 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


man’s spiritual weakness. The call to the nations 
to lay down their arms, on the part of peace advocates, 
is like requesting the cowboys in a Western mining- 
camp to throw away their guns. Put one of these 
cowboys in Concord, and he would be ashamed to be 
seen with a gun. So we must create new spiritual 
conditions, and this can be done only through univer- 
sal human sacrifices. We are likely to recoil in hor- 
ror from the thought of so much destruction of life, 
because we overlook one simple fact. When we 
think of physical suffering, we think of it en masse; 
we see countless human beings shot to death, long 
lines of wounded, almost unimaginable stretches of 
agony. And when we think of this agony being en- 
dured, owing to a perfectly natural illusion, we think 
of one person bearing it all. We have, however, no 
moral right to do this. Each has his individual 
share of suffering and no more. It is quite prob- 
able that each one of us some time in our lives has 
had to bear as much pain as is borne by the average 
individual on the battle-field. I say to myself (and 
that is all that I have any right to say or know, be- 
cause I do not actually know others) that, so far as I 
myself am concerned, I can bear what I have to bear. 
It may be hard, but I can bear it. I can die but 
once. If I suffer, I can suffer in the same way but 
once; and furthermore, my experience has taught me 


WAR, PEACE, AND AMERICA 61 


that this suffering, whether it be physical or mental, 
is not only an illusion of my mortal self, but 
in the nature of things must be and is precisely what 
is best for me. But still greater than all this is the 
conviction than my own death, no matter how it may 
come, will not rob me of anything. On the contrary, 
I rejoice at the thought that, through it, there may be 
advance made somewhere. In short, my death, with 
whatever suffering may attend it, is only of con- 
sequence when it serves—that is, when, as a unit, it 
is added—to all the weight of suffering through which 
the human race may finally be redeemed. And as 
for a man’s life, any part of it is equal to the whole. 


THE REAL CONFLICT 


Now if we look at the matter in this way, we shall 
come at last to understand the great war. We must 
drop its physical aspects at once—must cast them 
aside. What passes before our physical eyesight is 
nothing but the visible reflex of the clash of moral 
ideas that are being fought out within the human soul. 
We really live not in deeds, not in thought, but in 
moral reactions. The war means only that during a 
certain period in the history of the human race—say 
from 1914 to 1918—there came to all the great 


nations of the world a great moral readjust- 


62 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


ment, in which it was discovered anew that only 
by ruthless sacrifices of certain elements within it- 
self could the world advance a step forward in the 
vast chronology of human liberty. And by a singular 
paradox, it would seem as if this upward spiritual 
movement was accomplished by the sacrifice of the 
best. So with rigid hearts, we still mourn for the 
flower of the young manhood of France, Britain, and 
America, and, mourning, say, “Why should these 
have had to go?” 

Yet is this not always so? Are not all of us, in 
our own individual battle of life, constantly under 
the stern necessity of relinquishing that which we 
have come to cherish the most? And do we not, in 
the light of a fuller, richer experience, come to say 
at last, “Lord, Thy will be done’’? 

It seems to me, therefore, it now ought to be plain 
that war can only stop on earth when we are willing 
to renounce the things which go to make war. We 
ought to understand, even if at first we see through a 
glass but darkly, that the source of our being, namely, 
our Creator, must not only know more than we do, 
but must have the world well in hand for his own 
purposes. This being so, instead of trying to invent 
cures of our own for what we think ought to be cured, 
is it not much more sensible for us to examine the 


WAR, PEACE, AND AMERICA 63 


facts in the light of truth, and not assume that we 
know more than God? 

Speaking physically, some one said that if every- 
body would take a bath every day, the world would 
be regenerated. I feel the same way about war. I 
see no way to stop it except for each one of us to 
go back to the source of his being and search himself. 
If each one does this, not only war will cease, but the 
whole material world will respond. Invention will 
still persist. But it will be right invention, not 
wrong. 

In the next chapter I shall deal with man as a 
dream-god. 












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MAN THE DREAM-GOD 


In this chapter the author indulges in satire and some 
apparently cynical reflections about the condition of society. 
It is intended, however,—as the reader will perceive later 
on,—to be merely a description of the material life of the 
majority of human beings, this unreality being in contrast 
to their real or spiritual selves. 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 


Every man if encouraged will tell you privately 
that he suffers more than others. But if you accuse 
him of this publicly he will always deny it and de- 
clare how happy he is. 

The great occupation of the majority of modern 
human beings is the continuous effort to conceal from 
others how much afraid they are. This becomes 
an unconscious process, and bears fruit in various 
forms of self-assertiveness, egotism, and in other de- 
ceptive poses. We may well exclaim, “O faithless 
generation!” 

The whole aim of modern education is to teach 
us how to defend ourselves against our own civiliza- 
tion. And this is necessary, otherwise we should all 
be physically destroyed. 

We create progressive forms of self-destruction, 
and then devise means to become immune to them. 
Learning to dodge traffic is not so much an art as 
an obligation. Motion pictures, motor-cars, sports, 
speculation, and telephones tend to rob us of the 


power of motion and intelligent speech. To offset 
67 


68 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


these influences, we invent new sports and establish 
standardized religions and schools of oratory. 

There is small difference between a man sitting on 
the front seat of a motor-car and making his way 
through traffic, and a man sitting in his pelvic cavity 
and making his way through a gauntlet of modern 
diseases. 

The social conversation of the most advanced hu- 
man beings in off hours is almost exclusively devoted 
to remedies. To have been operated upon success- 
fully is one of the highest badges of distinction. 
Voltaire said that a man at forty was either a fool or 
a physician. Many of us are both. 

The qualities which men labor so hard to perfect 
are almost, if not quite, all perfected for the purpose 
of protecting them against imaginary dangers. 


EDUCATION 


A New York furrier, inspired by commercial mo- 
tives, let loose a wild fox in the streets of the 
metropolis. In a very short time the panic-stricken 
animal, subjected to this hideous form of cruelty, was 
destroyed. If he had had the slavery-sense so highly 
developed among human beings, and had secreted 
himself in some convenient cage, he would have been 
admired by thousands. 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 69 


Or fancy this fox first as the inmate of some “prep” 
school, and then a graduate from Harvard. He 
might thus in time become eligible as a member of 
the intelligentsia. Even human beings with less 
natural endowment have accomplished this feat. 

An enterprising statistician prepares a table of 
educational values, to prove that a certain number of 
college graduates develop a higher earning capacity 
within a definite period than an equal number of 
non-graduates. Object, commercial defense. 

Work, the great stabilizer and moral antiseptic, 
is withheld from their boys by well to do parents, 
until the campus complex enslaves them, and leaves 
them to struggle for years against the handicap of 
a university system which asks for nothing but cheap 
cynicism in return for the elaborate intellectual 
luxuries it provides. 


FINANCE 


A man who wanted to be a banker complained to 
a friend that the good positions were all the result 
of favoritism. “Then,” replied the friend, “why 
not practise to become a favorite?” In that phrase 
is summed up the complete philosophy of a whole 
period. 

Christ said: 


“Lay not up for yourselves treasures—”’ 


70 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


The savings-bank slogan reads: “Save your pen- 
nies for your old age and draw interest at 4%.” 

Men talk about money (in all its forms), diseases, 
and women. Women talk about operations, clothes, 
and other women. 

Religion is used as a narcotic to dull the mind 
against the thought of death. The worst thing 
that can be done to any man in these days is to 
go back of him in the dark and touch him on the 
shoulder. 

The three most important personages in the life of 
a successful man are the banker, the doctor, and the 
undertaker. 

Various methods have been devised to throttle the 
creative instinct. Among others may be mentioned 
the public schools, child labor, and standardization, 
of which mass production is the unclean offspring. 

What is it that all men want? Answer: to under- 
stand. 

The difference between knowledge and understand- 
ing is the difference between the brain and the soul. 
To know that 2 and 2 make 4 does not satisfy. To 
feel that 2 and 2 make 4 is to understand that there is 
something beyond the senses which makes for 
permanence. 

The understanding of anything is the realization of 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 71 


its permanence. Evil is not permanent; it is con- 
stantly shifting its base; hence it is not understood, 
except by the few who have taken the trouble to 
find out about it and who know it has no real 
power. 


WEAKNESS 


We fear what we do not understand. As we under- 
stand very little, we fear a great deal. There is 
nothing so weak as material power. The greater, 
the weaker. Material power admits nothing it can- 
not see. Yet the strongest man in the world cowers 
before the invisible microbe. A Russian Jew in 
Brooklyn who had saved up a small fortune in gold 
counted it out every night. A friend persuaded 
him, for safety’s sake, to deposit it with a trust 
company. The following night he was found hang- 
ing toa lamp-post. He could not see it. He thought 
he had lost it. And yet every fear is a shadow. 


THIS IS A DETOUR 


Are these sentences I have just written, briefly 
descriptive of the glittering and deceptive surface of 
our material life in this fair America—the richest, 


72 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


most progressive, and most altruistic country in 
the world—too cynical and too unfair? If so, let 
us sit down in more sober judgment, and consider 
our assets also. We must not grow morbid or 
take to brooding, or our purpose will be de- 
feated. 

The first question which in honor we must ask our- 
selves is, What are we trying to make of our country, 
out of the world, and out of ourselves? Are we 
really trying to make a better place to live in? And 
if so, what sort of a better place, and for whom? 
Ourselves, or posterity? 

It is quite certain that our forebears suffered 
many hardships and privations. It is quite certain 
that they shed their blood freely on many battle- 
fields that this Union might be preserved and we 
might enjoy the fruits thereof. It is equally certain 
that beneath the glittering surfaces I write of, men 
and women are to-day making as many sacrifices, if 
not more, than during any previous period in his- 
tory. This is true all over the world. There are 
giants to-day as in those days of old. Never before, 
it is probable, have there been gathered together in 
one country so many men and women inspired by 
such noble purposes. And this is not all. There 
is among us a keen and constantly growing spiritual 
discernment. 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 73 


WE ARE NOT ON TRIAL 


In one of his campaign speeches, an unsuccessful 
candidate for the Presidency made the unfortunate 
remark that we were on trial before the world. He 
spoke of the League of Nations. Yet the reverse is 
true. We were certainly not on trial before the 
world when we sent our men by millions and our 
money by millions to win the war in Europe. We 
are, in point of fact, no more on trial before the 
world than the world is on trial before us. 

And humanity is not on trial in its spirit, but in 
its body. These material things I write of are the 
things that have fastened themselves upon us. They 
are delusions, but unless we face them boldly and un- 
derstand them, they bid fair to destroy us. I doubt 
not the outcome. 

Fear is a delusion. But it is still fear. The real 
answer to the question, What are we trying to make 
out of our country, the world, and ourselves? is this: 


1For an extremely interesting analysis and lucid explanation of 
how our sense impressions have gradually swamped our real selves, 
see “The Evolution of Man” by G. Elliot Smith (Oxford). Professor 
Smith writes: “The range of true judgment is in fact extremely 
limited in the vast majority of human beings. Emotions and the 
unconscious influence of the environment in which an individual 
has grown up play an enormous part in all his decisions, even though 
he may give a rational explanation of the motives for many of his 
actions without realizing that they were inspired by causes utterly 
alien to those which he has given... .” 


74 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


We are trying to make a better abiding-place for our 
spirits, and not for our bodies. So far as our bodily 
comfort is concerned, undoubtedly we seem to be 
better off than we were. But confronted as we are 
by the grim specter of war, is the price we are pay- 
ing too great? What I am trying to make plain— 
and indeed it is no easy task—is that if we go out 
exclusively for material benefits, for greater ease 
without considering our souls, we shall destroy our- 
selves. War will destroy us. Therefore we must 
take account of stock; we must face the facts 
squarely; we must not shrink from holding this mirror 
of materialism up to ourselves. We shall see jazz, 
vulgarity, sexual perversion, crime, laxity, low politi- 
cal standards. They are horrible delusions, but they 
will remain if we encourage them to stay, if we do 
not understand that they are with us not to make 
us happier, but to destroy us. With increased spir- 
itual discernment, they will vanish, and in their place 
will come a new materialism, which will be the serv- 
ant and not the master of Man. Let us now go on 
with our indictment. 


AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER? 


One of the most destructive delusions in the world 
is a developed sense of responsibility. “Passing the 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 75 


buck,” a slang phrase indicative of certain practices 
and applied to political and business life, can be 
traced back to families. Here we have a tragic mis- 
representation, the cause of more actual disturbance 
than anything else which could be named. For it 
is assumed that the trouble comes from the passing of 
the responsibility from one member of the family to 
the other, whereas the real weakness lies at the other 
end,—in the acquiescence in and acceptance of the 
responsibility by one member. Parents are not re- 
sponsible for the conduct of their children—only for 
the conditions they make. But they think they can 
escape the responsibility for their own conduct. 
The head of a family has nothing whatever to do with 
the acts of other members, but only his own. A man 
controls his family only in proportion as he controls 
himself. If he is in trouble and will give half the 
examination to himself that he would give to his 
business, he will invariably find that the trouble can 
be traced back to his own weakness. Perhaps in a 
moment of prosperity he has yielded to demands. 
When others find that at certain periods they are 
actually invited to impose upon one, they naturally 
resent it later when one refuses to be imposed upon. 
A father is afraid to tell his son why he does n’t go 
to church, and then worries secretly over his re- 
sponsibility in trying to make his son go. He argues 


76 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


that it may not be necessary for him, but is for the 
boy. The boy will not go, and the father blames 
him. He has indulged himself in not going. His 
trouble is with himself, not the boy. Parents thus, 
by reverse methods, spoil their children, husbands 
their wives, and vice versa. As for the invariable 
one who does the work of the others, the household 
martyr, he is thus not the strongest, but the weakest. 
If he suffers, it is because he deserves to. He is 
guilty in the eyes of the moral law. 

The Emperor Augustus, the most powerful mon- 
arch in the known world, had the power of life 
and death over all his subjects, including his own 
family. Yet he had no influence at all over his 
children and grandchildren. He could not change 
them. 

Christ said: 

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
God.” 

If we may judge from observation, most men prefer 
to remain impure and not see God. 


THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 


Those who occupy their minds with the thought of 
their own possessions gradually become blind to 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 77 


everything else. They yield to this not because they 
are afraid for themselves, as for those dependent 
upon them. This false sense of responsibility blinds 
them to the fact that God takes care of others, no 
matter how close to one they are. Also, when a man 
throws off the care of others, in all their actions, upon 
God, this releases him from so much anxiety that his 
ability to take care of them increases in proportion. 
This is the moral law. Whatever influence you have 
over others is only through the force of silent 
example. 

The fear which most men have of not being taken 
care of in their old age is likewise due to this false 
sense of responsibility. Instead of laying up 
treasures for this contingency, a man should train 
himself to be useful in some manner even if this 
occupation be a humble one. A rich, useless man in 
his old age is a torment to himself and all of his 
associates. In two or three years he may thus undo 
all the good of a lifetime. Early in life, along with 
his chief money-making, let him cultivate a hobby 
which will give him sufficient skill when old to feel 
that he is still of importance. It may be farming or 
writing. An old man requires very little support. 
There are any number of occupations which will 
provide for this. An old man’s advice in certain 


78 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


fields in which he has studied all his life is often very 
valuable. 
Christ said: 


“Take no anxious thought for the morrow.” 


THE INTELLECT——A WEAK SISTER 


The business of philosophy, theology, and the 
higher criticism is to invent new terms for old false- 
hoods, in order to give them new plausibility. We 
are highly sophisticated. If Christ had come at any 
other moment of the world’s history, it is doubtful if 
his message would have been carried on. 

We loudly proclaim the intellect as our only guide, 
and constantly discard its conclusions for new ones. 
In Independence Hall, Philadelphia, is a case of 
knives once used for bleeding purposes—regarded 
now as historical curiosities. 

At one time it was declared that the sun revolved 
around the earth, and matter was ponderable. Then 
it was declared that the earth revolved around the 
sun. Now it is stated that nothing revolves around 
anything, that all things are relative and there is no 
such thing as time, space, or matter. Albert Ein- 
stein, inventor of relativity, got into a dispute with a 
Berlin tram conductor about the change in his tram 
fare. The conductor remarked, “You are weak at 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 79 


arithmetic.” The conductor was right. Professor 
Einstein, however, was no worse than the rest of us. 

The methods of the mystic and the scientist are 
identical. Each creates an hypothesis and then at- 
tempts to prove it. The scientist presents the facts 
deduced to his fellow-scientists with his formula and 
they hail him as chief; a minority, however, being 
against him. The mystic says, “Do as I have done 
and you will believe as I believe.” 

The mathematicians have reduced the world to a 
symbolic trinity. So have the theologians. Lan- 
guage was invented to make men inarticulate. 


A TYPE 


A typical successful householder is a man with a 
wife and two children who lives in a house that cost 
from $18,000 to $30,000, is worth all told from 
$30,000 to $100,000, and has a combined earned 
and unearned income of say $15,000 a year. He 
represents a small, but important, minority (about 
250,000 in a population of 100,000,000), but his 
importance consists in the fact that through him, or 
those dependent upon him, flow so many of the 
destructive, but so-called civilizing, influences. This 
is due to his material buying-power. He is con- 
stantly beset by members of his family to buy more, 


80 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


and is a prey to his own desire to add to whatever 
possessions he is temperamentally inclined to buy 
for himself. At the same time, he is held back by 
fear of the consequences. This keeps him whip- 
sawed between desire on one hand and fear on the 
other. He rises in the morning and immediately 
scans the paper for market reports, although on the 
previous afternoon he has bought the late editions 
and knows precisely what these reports are. If “con- 
ditions” are good, he is afraid of his wife and chil- 
dren—afraid that they will discover by his manner 
that he is prosperous, so he gradually becomes 
secretive. His face in repose invariably tells his 
story. If he smokes, he is constantly wondering 
whether it is too much. Fed through the newspapers 
with constant reports of new diseases, and likewise 
terrorized by countless suggestions from his solicit- 
ous wife and friends, he is the victim of a continu- 
ous stream of anxieties, which buzz about him like 
gnats or expand to the proportion of dragons. 
Meanwhile, the merchants of pleasure and other mod- 
ern industries, knowing there is sure money to be 
made out of his terrors, big and little, lure him with 
transient joys which afford him temporary relief— 
and otherwise sell him what other forms of immunity 
they have to lessen his discomfort. His false sense 
of responsibility grows with the increase in his pos- 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 81 


sessions, and every added day brings him so much 
nearer to death, thus increasing his bondage to the 
doctors. This gloomy, but quite accurate, picture is, 
however, relieved by one bright spot. Kind Provi- 
dence presents him with the priceless illusion that he 
is the only sufferer in his class—that all the others are 
better off than he is. Thus his pride is stimulated, 
and bolsters up his courage to keep up the bluff. 
By sheer force of being shamed into it, he main- 
tains an outward show of cheerfulness, declares that 
he is feeling “fine,” and thus, himself, serves as a 
sample illusion to his fellow-sufferers. All this con- 
stitutes what may be termed the perfect circle of 
hypocrisy, in which each, for appearance’s sake, is 
patting himself on the back before all the others. 

Christ said: 

‘A man’s foes shall be they of his own household.” 

This means that, although the spiritual love we bear 
to those near and dear to us never lapses, we are at 
war with their false, material selves, just as we are at 
war with our own. 


WHEN WE SEE MORE CLEARLY 


During a panic, however, in which all are con- 
cerned, and concealment is no longer a matter of 
personal vanity, the veil is at once torn aside and 


82 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


everybody glories in the common misfortune, those 
who lose the most being held up as heroes. _ It is dur- 
ing these periods, or shortly succeeding, that epi- 
demics come, like the plague in Athens and London 
or the “flu” after our own big recent war. Mankind 
thereafter gradually takes on the veil again. 

Money-Sex-Intellect is the three-headed Moloch 
of modern civilization. Men secretly distrust the 
latter, but worship because they believe that through 
it is the only way they can secure the favor of the 
other two. Compared with this triple-riveted com- 
bine, the World, the Flesh, and the Devil of St. Paul 
were tyros. 

All men know what the truth is, but they are afraid 
to proclaim it for fear it might become universal and 
put them out of business. Men do not desire happi- 
ness. They deliberately attach themselves to anxiety 
as an antidote. 


Christ said: 
“My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” 


THE TRUE RICHES OF THE POOR 


Those in more reduced circumstances than the type 
of man I have limned,—all the way down to the 
“masses,” who live close to the pauper line,—are 
generally more tranquil and stable and resigned 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 83 


under their sorrows. They hang together more. 
They are more unselfish. The abnormal craving for 
material things does not bother them so much. Also, 
they are more truly spiritual; they depend more upon 
Love. Their religion, as foolish as it seems to the in- 
tellectual, is more reliable, more real. They lean 
more upon God, in whom they are more apt to be- 
lieve and to trust. There are exceptions to this; but 
even the criminals who spring from the masses are 
not so offensive in their aspects as the criminals who 
spring from the classes. Their sins are more inno- 
cent, their blindness more excusable. Thus Christ 
must have written on the ground. Give these people 
leisure, however, and they take on the base at- 
mosphere of intellect and rapidly degenerate. 


POSSESSIONS 


Many kinds of intellectual, or semi-intellectual, 
occupations are of doubtful permanent value in com- 
parison with the spiritual outlook which always fol- 
lows a more complete detachment from material 
things. It is doubtful indeed if the erection of beau- 
tiful show houses with formal gardens, as beautiful 
as they may be, does not limit instead of expanding. 

To get the. most out of life, even from a severely 
practical standpoint, one must constantly preserve the 


84 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


attitude of a sojourner in a dazzling picture-world 
of God’s making, without responsibility or personal 
covetousness, in order to understand the transcendent 
beauty of the universe. This certainly cannot be 
done—or can be done only in part—when one is 
groping about in the dark, carrying the world on his 
shoulders like Atlas, afraid of his shadow, engrossed 
with secret care, and filled with a transient conceit 
over the cheap glory of ownership for something 
which another man has made. What we term art, 
if it is anything at all, is a reflection of God. Why 
not go to the source and live in Nature, where all 
things are free? To be released from the bondage I 
have suggested is to step into a wonder world of both 
spiritual and intellectual delight. 

So far as alleged intelligence is concerned,—that 
is, that sort of intelligence which is the product of 
education (culture),—one is inclined to hope that 
people of this class will take the trouble to search 
themselves and discover, if possible, some means of 
relief from the agony and sweat of life. Yet the 
greatest thinkers have been the most lamentable fail- 
ures, so far as any art of living is concerned—so 
rare is it, indeed, to find intelligence among the 
educated! 

Socrates apparently was helpless in contact with 
his wife. He joked about her, this being the favorite 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 85 


method employed by those who are failures in 
any one respect. Yet if there is anything at all 
to the art of living, having trouble with one’s wife 
is not a joke—it is an acknowledgement of failure in 
one of the most important branches of life. Great 
scientists have been known to take all kinds of cheap 
remedies. A history of the domestic lives of philo- 
sophers and great men would disclose a pathetic trail 
of wreckage. 


Christ said: 
“Tt is the spirit that quickeneth.” 


WHY DON’T WE THINK OF THIS MORE? 


If anything is more important than a science of 
right living, what is it? In some aspect or another, 
is it not a subject that takes up practically all the 
space in our current literature and newspapers? 
Domestic economy in all its forms, business, stocks 
and bonds, real estate, transportation, medicine, 
doctors, ailments and cures, art, literature and music 
—what is the increasing repetition of all these things 
but overwhelming evidence that everybody is pas- 
sionately desirous of getting something out of life? 
Yet the moment we investigate any method of relief, 
be it pleasure, healing, investment, travel, or any 
one of the thousand contraptions advertised, we know 


86 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


that behind it is the commercial motive, controlled by 
cold-blooded, grasping, and experienced actors, made 
supernormally cunning by the size of the stakes—all 
out to exploit us. Our sentiments and emotions, our 
psychology, our temperaments, the amount of pigment 
we may have in our skins, the color of our eyes and 
hair, our passions, our sex-impulses—all these vari- 
ous things, and more, are coolly and mercilessly ap- 
praised by trained bands of high-salaried gentlemen 
who sit invisible behind mahogany railings and agi- 
tate the machinery which so skilfully separates us 
from our hard-earned wealth. Indeed, we, the vic- 
tims of this vast system, are probably ourselves also 
playing the game in other ways, thus gathering from 
our own circle of “‘prospects” the wherewithal to be 
victimized. 


THE MERRY-GO-ROUND OF MATTER 


Into this maelstrom of materialism, with its shame- 
less extravagance, its gross vulgarity, its indecent ex- 
posure of everything rotten, no gleam of beauty pene- 
trates, no ray of spiritual purpose enters. In the 
whole history of mankind, no more destructive race 
of people than the Americans have ever existed. 
Gorged with natural resources, we chop down our 
forests to make paper in which to exploit the putrid 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 87 


tendencies of a society constantly growing more de- 
cadent. Blind consumers of coal, oil, and food, we 
sacrifice our children in factories, mills, and field, 
laugh at our slums, boast that we encourage more 
crime than any other nation, and when we deprecate 
the ten million illiterates we have allowed to “matric- 
ulate’ among us, do so mainly because their illiter- 
acy prevents them from becoming buyers. Is this pic- 
ture overdrawn? Read the answer in the news- 
papers. 

We have as much, if not more, natural beauty than 
any other country in the world. Among us is a 
great talent for artistic achievement of every sort; 
yet we permit a small band of intellectuals to feed us 
with the offscourings of European culture, while at 
the same time they sneer at the country that supports 
them. No fashionable girls’ school can employ 
native musical talent. Parents who wish their girls 
accomplished will not patronize schools that do not 
have European teachers. 

There is really no way of finding out about 
America except by examining it for yourself. We de- 
lude ourselves with the belief that we are getting in- 
formation from writers, when all that any writer can 
do is to disclose his own thoughts. The historian 
who writes that America was discovered by Columbus, 
or the biologist that we once went about with tails— 


88 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


these men are merely telling us what they think. 
That which we term knowledge is that which is 
unknown. 


WHAT IS REPUTATION? 


The moment a man acquires a reputation for any- 
thing he is confined within the limits of that reputa- 
tion. A reputation is a fence that the owner builds 
around himself. Even an ass has followers, and 
cannot depart from being one without being ridiculed 
by outsiders. His tendency to remain an ass becomes 
more fixed as time goes on. 

No reliance can be placed upon people with repu- 
tations,—so-called specialists or experts,—because 
they are, in advance, committed to a program, and 
either a natural pride, or—what is much more im- 
portant—their living, depends upon their sticking 
to their lasts. The strain of material existence is so 
great that all the various traits men display, such as 
politeness, dignity, courage, cheerfulness, etc., are 
developed by this necessity, according to tempera- 
ment. Each is merely a perfected form of self- 
protection. A crusty exterior generally conceals 
genuine merit of some sort. 

We are all Red-riding-hoods. We constantly 
throw ourselves on Grandmother Wolf for shelter. 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 89 


WHAT IS PERSONALITY 


The subject of personality has never been properly 
probed except by the psychologists, whose ignorance 
increases in proportion to their advancement. Just 
as the body is sustained by food and drink, and with- 
out these would perish, so the person himself, what- 
ever his intellect or judgment or will or identity may 
be, is fed from unknown sources. All other people 
are thus as unreal as ourselves. We know noth- 
ing about either. People are phenomena, composed 
of tissue, which is in turn a form of matter, and 
matter is non-existent. Yet behind these masks 
we know there is something more. Everybody 
knows that, but nobody takes the trouble to under- 
stand it. 


Christ said: 
“Seek and ye shall find: knock, and it shall be 


opened unto you.” 


All that we know is, apparently, that we are able 
to feel something which we have reason to believe an 
ant, for example, can not feel. It is precisely this 
which separates us from our material selves. We 
don’t believe an ant either knows, or even suspects, 
what is going on outside of his beat. He is not 
aware of us, or of anything else beyond his natural 


90 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


instincts. But we seem to have gone a little farther 
than that in the scale of evolution, in so far as we 
suspect that there is something beyond our senses. 
Particularly is this true when we come to examine 
our senses, and discover that they are so unreliable. 
That we are able thus to examine them seems to prove 
to us that there must be something in us which, like 
a judge, looks down upon self in the arena and thus 
holds it up to analysis. 

But the moment we enter upon this independent 
investigation, firmly resolved to act for ourselves, 
to take nobody’s word, a thousand things seem to 
rise up in front to prevent us. In the beginning of 
our bewilderments and uncertainties, we are told by 
some one who seems very real to us, that introspec- 
tion is bad, too much thinking will drive us mad. 
Public opinion thus scares us, and we are switched 
away from our inquiry, the pursuit of which might 
lead to understanding. This sense of indecision is 
immeasurably increased by the voices of a legion of 
hawkers, who offer us remedies for every ill under 
the sun—always at a price. I know people who all 
their lives have so fallen into the habit of being 
cured of something or other, that finally this has 
become their chief occupation. Said Christ: 


“Ye shall know them by their fruits.” 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 91 


INFERIORITY 


The process of belittling, to which we are con- 
stantly subjected in our endeavors to make ourselves 
better, is a particular manifestation of the general 
rule of destruction. And just as others belittle our 
successes, so we, generally quite unconsciously, be- 
little theirs. And this rule of destruction is just as 
active for ourselves, being defined by the psycho- 
analysts and bred up as the inferiority complex. 
Thus what we think runs out into voids, whirlpools of 
chaos. The most disgusting trait in human nature, 
judging by the results, is this base spirit of submis- 
sion, this yielding to the critics. There is small 
actual, practical difference between the cruelty shown 
by religious fanatics toward their own bodies, and 
cruelty displayed toward others. Both spring from 
hidden sexual sources. In many countries women 
derive satisfaction from flagellation. Many spiritual 
exercises and other similar forms of penance, such 
as lying on thorns, wearing hair shirts etc., are 
perverted forms of sexual restlessness, seeking 
sublimation. 

We often wonder why it is that such fine-looking 
people about us—dignified and ministerial waiters, 
noble barbers, courtly hotel clerks, and even butlers 


92 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


with faces like Daniel Webster—should so often be 
engaged in menial occupations. Not that these oc- 
cupations are ignoble, because in many respects they 
may be more truly dignified and God-given than the 
occupations of bankers and brokers and other gentry. 
It is not that; it is only that we see on the frequently 
lofty faces of the masses the hall-mark of submis- 
sion. They are spiritually cowed; there is no fight 
in them. These men, like all other men mostly, 
make good soldiers. But physical and moral cour- 
age are quite different. Thus countless men bow 
down before the graven images they erect in their em- 
ployer or in their own household, in the shape of 
wife or children. 


Said Christ: 
“Who is my mother or my brethren?” 


Thus, when others belittle us, or we belittle our- 
selves, we submit to falsities, we turn tail and run. 
It is all so tragically pathetic, because so unnecessary. 


THE INDIVIDUAL 


This Eliza-crossing-the-ice method is shown by the 
faces and actions of the large company who practise 
it. Take any human being in his own home,—or 
lair,—and study him there freely and disinterestedly, 
and you will find that in all respects he is precisely 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 93 


like a cunning animal. These facts must show us 
that we can depend only upon our individual selves. 
In fact, there is nobody else. This truth is borne 
out by the glimpses we get of the thoughts of others. 
If we examine the statements made by scientists, we 
get from them not only a note of despair at the 
solid wall confronting them, but also the invariable 
conclusion that after all the balances have been 
checked up and brought over, we ourselves are the 
final judges. All things are relative, declares Ein- 
stein. For whom? For the individual alone. I, 
the individual, am the center of the universe. No- 
body else can teach me anything I cannot learn for 
myself. I am a conscious part of everything. All 
things move about me, and I am the sole judge. 
Thus, if any man comes up to me and tries to befuddle 
me with a show of learning, or any other hocus-pocus, 
my answer is that my mind is as good as his. I can- 
not recognize his special claim. The evolutionist is 
invariably defeated by his own testimony, and not 
having had the time or the temperament to nurture a 
sense of humor, he has not the slightest realization 
of the huge satire involved in his position. Evolu- 
tionists trace the so-called history of evolution of man 
from the remotest times up to the alleged present 
showing quite cleverly that the whole system of artic- 
ulate speech has been slowly built up like a huge 


94 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


web of illusion; that, so to speak, it is a house of 
cards built upon sand. The proof lies in the con- 
flicting theories of all eminent thinkers. Their in- 
nocence is shown by the fact that they think it only 
necessary to deny what they don’t believe, to make 
it true. Scratch a philosopher, and you find a 
monkey. If there is nothing else to depend upon but 
all that, in our own thought about ourselves, we must 
then logically revert to the most complete animalism, 
we must throw up our hands and admit that there is 
nothing real but what we can see and feel, that indeed, 
we are nothing better than a larger form of ant. 


THE SPECIALISTS 


Tell representatives of the intellect and culture 
—philosophers, scientists, biologists, essayists, popu- 
lar inspirational writers, theologians, etc.—that they 
are all ignorant, and they become mad as hornets. 
Indeed, their rage is so great that it frequently makes 
them inarticulate, and for purposes of defense, they 
simulate the loftiest contempt. The layman is per- 
sone non grata in any court of specialists. Yet any 
one of these specialists, in any branch of thought, 
can be convicted out of hand on his own evidence in 
half an hour. 

Go to any library, get the best biology they have, 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 95 


and somewhere in it you will catch the author ad- 
mitting that he does n’t know anything. This admis- 
sion may be tucked away in a quiet paragraph, but 
it is always there. 


THEY ALL THROW UP THEIR HANDS 


Even at the risk of trying the patience and shaming 
the intelligence of my already overburdened reader, 
I yield to temptation in reproducing the following 
quotations, taken at random from my own library. 


It is much easier to show that a certain event has taken 
place than to explain why it has taken place. 


It must be admitted that when we have accounted for the 
origin of anything by the theory of natural selection we 
have only made the first step in the direction of a full and 
causal explanation. 


. .. there has been revealed no clue as to what causes 
variations to arise. 


From “Studies in Evolution and Eugenics” by S. J. 
Holmes, Professor of Zoology in the University of Cali- 
fornia (Harcourt). 


It is contrary to philosophy and to ordinary experience 
to believe that man can come near exhausting the reality of 
any order of facts by scientific methods only. 

From “The Control of Life’ by J. Arthur Thomson, 
M.A., LL.D. (Holt). 


96 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


Many men of science, following Mach and Karl Pearson, 
have affirmed that science can never explain more than 
“how” events occur: it can never’ touch the problem of 
“why” they occur. 


From ‘Modern Science and Materialism” by Hugh 
Elliott (Longmans). 


Evolution means to me only part and not all of an ex- 
planation of these things . . . it does not explain to me, 
in any ultimate way, the fact that there are living creatures 
or an earth. Or that I have a consciousness of myself and 
of my relations to the other living things of the earth. 


From “Evolution” by Vernon Kellogg (Appleton). 


Evolutionism, in spite of its appeals to particular scienti- 
fic facts, fails to be a truly scientific philosophy because 
of its slavery to time, its ethical preoccupations, and its 
predominant interest in our mundane concerns and 
destiny. 

From “Mysticism and Logic” by Bertrand Russell (Long- 
mans). 


Is there not justification for the view so often expressed 
of late that man is never free and that responsibility and 
duty are mere delusions? 

From “Heredity and Environment” by Edwin G. Conklin 
of Princeton University. 


Have we, on the whole, arrived, or are we only on the 
way, or mayhap just starting? 

From “The Mind in the Making” by James Harvey Robin- 
son (Harper). 


Consider the notorious differences which, within my 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 97 


own recollection, have divided thinkers of the first rank in 
the English-speaking world. 


From “Theism and Thought” by Arthur James Balfour 
(Doran). 


These random quotations, revealing the doubt and 
confusion which exist to-day among the representa- 
tives of the intellect, could be indefinitely extended. 
No wonder the man in the street—who has just as 
much right as any one to share in whatever there may 
be—is driven away to any humbug offered. Yet is 
it not perfectly simple that if there is a Creator who 
must necessarily transcend our senses, he must also 
furnish us with a means to approach him? And 
does it not at least seem reasonable to suppose that 
he will naturally expect us to do this work ourselves, 
and not leave it to others? 


THE CRITIC 


As for the critics, get behind the scenes with them, 
and you will invariably discover that this is the thing 
they are doing to make a living, and the reputations 
they acquire for criticism are privately regarded as a 
business asset. It is an easy game, once the rudi- 
ments are learned. One has but to damn everything. 
I have studied these gentlemen too closely in their 
haunts not to know that their main idea is to make 


98 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


a decent or indecent living. There is no objection to 
this. The objection enters when we know they are 
trying to convey the impression of lofty thinking for 
art’s sake. Very few know, or care, what the truth 
is. If by hook or crook you can produce a fair 
imitation of it, you can easily make a good living, in 
a world where humbug is one of the recognized 
deities. 


MORE ABOUT PERSONALITY 


As for personality in general,—and by this I mean 
specifically the personality of all others to whom we 
are attached or with whom we come into contact,— 
one of the most difficult things for us to understand 
is exactly what personality means. 

Our inevitable tendency is to separate each per- 
sonality from all others and, by surrounding it and 
investing it with a thousand or more associations, to 
give it a specific identity of its own. All these per- 
sonalities with whom we are (apparently)  sur- 
rounded vary in their intensity and interest for us 
in proportion as we are tied up to them by sex in- 
stinct, love, affection, intellect, and so on. We often 
bow down to them and worship them as false gods, 
making sacrifices to them, and placating them, espe- 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 99 


cially if they happen to be in our own families. We 
cannot, except by spiritual training, separate the real 
personalities from the false personalities in those 
who are near to us. We allow them to badger us, 
to drain us of our resources, to frighten us in all 
sorts of ways, and when we suffer the consequences, 
we blame them, when we ought to blame our own 
ignorance in not understanding them. 

The people we see about us in crowds we see as a 
whole—en masse. If one of them has some trick 
of costume or feature that makes him stand out from 
the others, we note him with curiosity and mild 
amusement. If we then come to know hin, his vari- 
ous individual tricks and traits of temperament be- 
come stamped upon our consciousnesses much as we 
read a book, except that the book, for us, has an end 
and this person has not. We are constantly revis- 
ing our opinion about him. We do not perceive that 
he has no reality in respect of all these things, and 
that his actual self lies under them, invisible, spir- 
itual. It is this fact, of course, which enables us to 
communicate with him at all. Husbands and wives, 
if properly mated, thus become more tolerant of 
each other all the time, because this constant proc- 
ess of revision breeds cautiousness in rendering 
judgments. 


100 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


NARCISSUS UP TO DATE 


The best instance of this whole process is your own 
material self, for this material self, strange as this 
seems, is in the same general class with all these 
other varying personalities. It is often worshiped in 
the same manner. When we consider the constant 
sacrifices people are making to themselves, bowing 
down before their own physical desires, absorbed in 
the daily routine of self, the subject, for contempla- 
tion, is by far too horrible to be attractive. And 
this self of unreality, which seems so real, is con- 
stantly surprising you. It is like a fish you are try- 
ing to land, constantly running away with the line, 
lying dead on you, and then jumping clear out of the 
water. And you never quite land it. At least, not 
here. 

The process of petting one’s own body as if it were 
an imported pekingese or chow, is seen at its best in 
some of the haunts of the hell-ridden idle rich, where 
fat ladies bow down daily and hourly to the fleshly 
monuments they have created out of themselves— 
an ever recurring form of pearl-chain-gang slavery. 

It is because we are different, or quite separate, 
from what we think we are in our dream, that we 
know anything at all. The act of knowing, in itself, 
is based on contrast—on the thing which is known— 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 101 


that is to say, which one is aware of—and the one 
who knows. 

The one who knows, or who seeks constantly to 
know, is our immortal self, and this self is dis- 
tinguished from the world we live in, and from our 
other material self, as light is from darkness. 


THE REAL SELF 


There can be but one self, because everything we 
know or feel is, or must be, from the standpoint of 
that one self. Once this is understood, all becomes 
clear. We then come to see, quite simply and easily, 
not only that we ourselves are ONE, but that per- 
sonality, indeed, is just a useful word which covers 
most of the so-called ills that flesh is heir to. It 
stands vaguely for the crowd, and it stands speci- 
fically for acquaintances, friends, business and 
professional associates, family, loved ones, self, and 
God; for the God that people talk about and sing 
about in churches is man made, nothing but a form 
of personality. This God is worshiped by most 
men—if they think about him at all—much as one 
worships one’s wife: some one to be feared, placated, 
cajoled, prayed to, argued with, supported by give- - 
till-it-hurts contributions, and, when necessary, 
treated with the low, smug cunning for which the 


102 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


Anglo-Saxon race has achieved such a_ notable 
distinction. 

This combination of sentimentality and cowardice, 
which compels us to worship so many forms of per- 
sonality, seems to be an inheritance handed down to 
us by the cringing consciousness of the Jew, from 
whom we have inherited most of our spiritual vo- 
cabulary. Thus we bow down to and worship these 
various modern personalities as gods. Parents spoil 
their children, husbands spoil their wives, congrega- 
tions spoil their clergymen. Every working woman 
capable of making her living has one or more parasiti- 
cal relatives and incompetents hanging on to her like 
vampires, and frightening her into self-destruction 
by accusations of being untrue to her duty. Million- 
aires who give large sums to institutions are hailed as 
benefactors of the race. Groups of women standard- 
ize their sexual emotions under the name of welfare, 
or individualize them according to well-known 
formule for screen purposes. 


Christ said: 


“For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their 
ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have 
closed; lest at any time they should see with their 
eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand 
with their heart—” 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 103 


We think in terms of yesterday. The Bible is the 
reservoir from which for generations our best writers 
have drawn the streams of our thought. There- 
fore the Bible is the background of our spiritual 
consciousness. 


WHO REALLY THINKS? 


There is no such thing as thinking in the ordinary 
meaning of that term. We originate nothing. We 
serve as radio centers, through which move the spir- 
itual forces of the Universe. Our bodies begin to 
die the moment we are born. Doctors all their lives 
are trying to cure corpses, and don’t know it. We 
seem to select, but even that is an illusion. Our ac- 
tivities are chemical reactions, which occur from un- 
known motives. Among our writers there are, for 
instance, various vocabulary planes, or levels. On 
lower levels, writers depend on platitudes and 
clichés—stock phrases. On higher levels, writers 
are nicer in their sense of contrast. Writing is then 
proudly considered an art, and those who practise 
it—the stylists—look down with contempt upon the 
poor devils who lean on platitudes. In all cases, 
however, writers draw their vocabularies from a com- 
mon stock, and their form, or téchnic, likewise de- 


104 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


pends entirely upon the sources from which they draw 
their taste, culture, talent, or genius. They are the 
conduits through which flow the invisible current from 
the unknown, and become manifested in terms of 
expression—some more enduring than others, but all 
doomed to die. Homer and Shakespeare will thus 
eventually vanish, along with the last set of news- 
paper head-lines. The only reason we can communi- 
cate at all is because there is nothing original 
in any of us. If there were, it would be 
incommunicable. 


Christ said: 


“Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay.” 


THE MAN WITH AN OPINION 


The most ridiculous object in the world is the man 
with an opinion. 

The arguments we use to justify our opinions, or 
beliefs, are just as ridiculous as the beliefs them- 
selves. The stock reply to the argument against 
vivisection is, “Is n’t my child’s life of more value 
than the life of a dog?” The true answer is, “No!” 
The practical results of vivisection, or, on the other 
hand, the manifest abuses, are not brought here into 
question. It is sufficient to say that our whole sys- 
tem of material civilization is on the defensive when 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 105 


able and sincere men are compelled to resort to meth- 
ods which they justify on the ground of immediacy. 
The feelings of any parent are of no consequence 
when a permanent principle is involved, and it is 
the cheapest and most ignorant philosophy which 
drags in the child as justification. No parent, dur- 
ing the war, was heard to exclaim, “It is better that 
Germany should conquer the world than that I should 
lose my child.” Yet afterward it appeared that it 
might have been better. Some say Germany won the 
war after all. Others say that our last state was 
worse than the first. These ephemeral and shifting 
beliefs, this babel of opinion, is due to the universal 
darkness in which men’s minds grope. Abraham 
understood when he started to sacrifice his son Isaac. 
In our modern civilization he would have been thrown 
into jail as a child murderer; or if a surgeon had 
been called in, that gentleman would have promptly 
produced some sort of animal to be sacrificed in place 
of Isaac. We may say that this Bible story never 
happened. It happened as certainly as that every- 
thing we think is real is unreal, and everything we 
think is unreal is real. If Abraham, in common with 
modern parents, had placed his child first, before the 
command of God, he would then have been worship- 
ing a false god in the shape of Isaac, precisely as we 
all do to-day in the personalities of our wives and 


106 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


children and the various other denominational deities 
we personify under the general title of God. 
Christ said: 


“Tl have overcome the world.” 


He meant that he understood at last the nothingness 
of all that vast network of illusion which we call the 
world. 

The intellect, more than anything else, is used as 
a mask to hide the spiritual ignorance of the learned. 

Art, whether it be expressed in terms of literature, 
drama, music, painting, or sculpture, is a similar 
illusion. When any man talks about “‘my art,” he 
is holding up his personality as a graven image. 

Are we here then to dismiss all this life we are liv- 
ing in—mice, maggots and men—as a dream, a 
chimera of the consciousness? Certainly. Christ 
said: 

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his right- 
eousness; and all these things shall be added unto 


99 


you. 
WHO SHALL BE LAST OVER THE FENCE? 


The great majority of men and women—humanity, 
dreamers, those whom Omar curtly classifies as 
“shadow shapes”—do not want to talk and certainly 
do not want to think about these things. They duck. 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 107 


The materially successful, who have entrenched 
themselves behind rampants of money, dismiss any 
suggestion of introspection as so much “bunk.” 
They buy their religion, just as they do their legal and 
medical protection, with hard cash. This, for 
temporary purposes, is a comfortable evasion, and 
their argument is unanswerable. A dollar cannot 
be refuted. Said Christ: 

“Render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar’s.” 

These off-hand people, whose coffers are full, 
pass their time worshiping at the various shrines 
of the false idols they have erected, their secret fears 
being locked up in the dark Bastille of their con- 
sciousnesses until on a day the revolution comes. 
Every pampered intellect supports its Louis XV, to 
be succeeded by the Reign of Terror. “After us 
the deluge.” 

Insouciance is the rubric of the intellectuals. In- 
timately deferential among themselves, they dismiss 
all laymen with complacent silence. Einstein is re- 
ported to have said there were only twelve men in 
the world who understood his theory of relativity. A 
conservative estimate. His attitude toward his 
predecessor Newton is expressed by the words, “After 
you, Alphonse.” Edison, they say, invented the 
electric light. But who invented Edison? 

A leading mathematician first declares that our 


108 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


only possible method of reasoning must be with the 
means provided by the senses. He then repudiates 
the reliability of the senses; whereupon a leading 
philosopher rebukes him for inconsistency, but leaves 
the question up in the air as to what we really are to 
do in a case like this. 


MATERIALISM TO THE BAR 


It does, indeed, seem to be a serious case. The 
truth is that materialism is constantly pleading 
guilty on its own count. Human beings all about us 
are constantly losing what is popularly, if mistakenly, 
considered our most precious possession, namely, our 
lives, on grade crossings. We are being smashed up 
in various other ways because the things we see 
are not what we think they are. Indeed, our skill in 
keeping ourselves alive as long as we do is incredible, 
considering the risks run. Yet we continually evoke 
the blessings of Peace, which, as I have stated, exacts 
more lives than war. On the one hand we hold life 
cheaper than dirt, as witness our leniency towards 
criminals, our exploitation of children in cotton- 
fields, mills, and factories, our grade crossings, our 
mines and underground toilers, while on the other 
hand our newspapers are filled with the latest cures 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 109 


of medical science, glowing accounts of the lowering 
of the death-rate, while healers and manipulators and 
nostrum hawkers of every shade of mendacity flourish 
like green bay-trees. 

Confronted everywhere by so many conflicting 
voices and theories, while at the same time they are 
absorbed by the problem of how to protect themselves 
from all the dangers surrounding them, is it any 
wonder that men grow discouraged and refuse either 
to talk or think about the thing which has come to be 
known as the Unknown? Thus, among Americans, 
has developed what is classified as the “hard-boiled” 
attitude, which is as much as to say: “Don’t bother 
me; I can take my medicine. I’m a good sport; but 
I’m not talking about it.” 


THE HARD-BOILED EGG 


There is not only much to be said in favor of this 
attitude from the inside, but, if we can imagine a 
benevolent and tolerant, but at the same time just and 
exacting, God looking down on this world, we can 
easily fancy him entertaining more genuine respect 
for the hard-boiled egg than for any other kind of 
citizen. The hard-boiled egg is conserving his en- 
ergies to preserve his own material identity and to 


110 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


keep himself alive in the best manner possible. If 
everybody else would do the same, a large part of our 
troubles would cease. He is under no illusion about 
his fate. He is here to make the most out of life 
while it lasts and to pass out with his boots on. The 
hard-boiled egg, under his shell, is serenely tolerant 
of the intellectuals, the sentimentalists, and the pious 
people. If they can extract comfort from their vari- 
ous activities, let them do so. As for him, he is a 
sincere worker, playing his cards close to his eyelids, 
and envying no man. If all this in itself is only 
another pose, at least it is not the pose of the parasite. 

In reality it is the pose of the fatalist, the stoic, the 
gentleman gambler. The certainty that some one or 
something will at some time get you, is accepted as so 
inevitable that it is folly to waste any time over it. 
The more time spent in dwelling on it, the worse it 
will be. But these are the men who, so far as this 
material world is concerned, carry it along on their 
shoulders. These are the men who, quick on the 
trigger, carry their nerve with them, shoulder great 
enterprises, and keep things going! They are not 
necessarily materialists. They support themselves, 
and ask no odds. God selects unconscious agents to 
do his greatest work, and not always those who patter 
from pulpits, write dull books on ethics, or evolve 
new systems of philosophy. 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 111 


A DREAM WORLD 


The great mistake they all make, however, no mat- 
ter whether they be hard-boiled eggs or sob-sisters, 
highbrows, lowbrows or middle-brows, is to take the 
world we live in too seriously, to assume that it exists 
when it doesn’t. They believe that what they know 
is true, whereas everything known is untrue. They 
think the world is real when it is n’t, and thus they 
fall into the most curious and astonishing paradoxes. 

It was a sad satire on science when matter, the 
laboratory deity so long bowed down to and wor- 
shiped, was declared by the same scientists to be 
nothing but electrons, and that a tree or a woman, an 
elephant or a mountain, a palace or a hovel, were so 
many combinations of nothingness which, in their own 
inevitable terms, could only be defined by their re- 
spective places in the atomic scale. A solid two-inch 
cube of iron, as one expert points out, which if it 
hit a man, would kill him, expanded to the size of an 
ordinary room would be invisible—no more than a 
thin vapor. We could move about in it and never 
know. Most people, of course, are quite incapable 
of grasping this thought, because, like the men in 
Plato’s cave, they are immersed in darkness. 

We should not any of us understand it if we were 
something other than what we think we are. The 


112 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


whole problem can be focused down to this question, 
as propounded by the philosophers: 

If our only means of knowing anything at all is 
through the senses, that is to say, by means of the 
symbolic vocabulary which is based altogether on 
sense perception, then how is it possible to prove that 
anything is valid beyond the senses? 

The answer is simple. 

Try it and see for yourself. Accept no substitutes. 
Lean on no other. 


DO AS THE SCIENTISTS DO 


Start out frankly with the hypothesis that there 
is a God. In this you are following the only method 
known, either by religionists or scientists, to arrive at 
any conclusion whatsoever. 

In making this hypothesis, it must be remembered 
that the God thus laid down as the unknown quantity 
must be actually an unknown quantity. He must be 
not such a god as man has built up out of sense per- 
ceptions; but a genuine unknown God—a source, a 
creator, as I have stated. Cast aside utterly and 
completely the world and everything in it, and by 
yourself alone face the unknown creator, and calmly 
wait results, 

In a short time, if you are genuinely sincere, if 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 113 


you are in such despair that you are honestly willing 
to try anything, you will be able to laugh all the 
philosophers and theologians in the world to scorn. 
You will be literally out of bondage—the way will 
be shown you. You will come to learn that while it 
is not always easy, while at times the world is com- 
pletely wrapped in darkness, you will find that the 
light always breaks in at the right moment, and that 
there is no other way. 


Christ said: 


“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after 
righteousness: for they shall be filled.” 


Only the unknown is real. 

Consciousness, as we use it, is an unreality. 

Reality is not alone a sense of the permanent, but 
the understanding of it. Our material consciousness 
deals only, at first, with the dead ends of things. 


NO ROYAL ROAD 


The laws of which the visible universe is the out- 
come cannot be learned in any correspondence 
school or by any man who is so wrapped up in his 
material concerns that he has lost his spiritual per- 
spective. When, through spiritual trial and error, 
we slowly come to gain the “peace that passeth all 
understanding,” then we begin to see, at first dimly 


114 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


and at last quite clearly and freely, that the testimony 
of the senses is wholly reversed, that what formerly 
appeared to be calamities have lost all their sting 
and mortal death is nothing in itself, that our im- 
mortality is quite beyond our mortal consciousness, 
that our needs are supplied in the most perfect man- 
ner down to the most trivial details, and indeed, that 
nothing can possibly hurt us while all things are 
prepared for our use, and that we view all persons 
and things with a love that before was quite 
unimaginable. 

Does it not, indeed, seem almost incredible that, 
when most of us know that our term of years is 
strictly limited, we should still spend nearly all of 
our waking moments with the crass assumption that 
our personal, material affairs are important? The 
hard-boiled egg I have referred to falls back on this 
defense because all the sense testimony is so con- 
flicting that he prefers to become a fatalist rather 
than mess himself up with such a chaos. An ad- 
mirable pose when we accept his point of view. 

But the mysterious thing within us which is con- 
tinually regurgitating the superficial material make- 
shifts and artificial stimuli impels us to keep asking, 
“Have I a soul?” and, “Is there a God?” to the 
point of distraction; so that we either allow ourselves 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 115 


to be voluntarily hypnotized by some well-known 
brand of religion, or else take the spiritual bit in our 
teeth and resolve to bolt into the unknown, rather 
than to be fed out of a nose-bag any longer or stamp 
our hoofs off in a paddock and branded by the 
owner, whoever he may be. 

Occasionally, no doubt, it requires courage or at 
least some power of decision, in the beginning espe- 
cially, to make this break. Generally it is the 
result of desperation; we are either fed up with 
fleshpots or are stripped bare of health or posses- 
sions or both—reduced to a kind of hopeless pulp, 
for there is nothing more melancholy than a down- 
and-outer. Those who set aside the claims of spirit 
with a cheap gesture, those who declare that the 
world is governed by chance, those who bask in the 
lime-light of the senses and defy the unknown, are 
but sealing their own doom. Said Christ: 


“You cannot serve God and Mammon.” 


IT MAY COME THIS WAY 


To change the simile, in the beginning one may 
start out with a full set of all-weather tires and two 
spares, and, by reckless driving and road-hog tactics, 
finally get down to bare rims. Then only does walk- 


116 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


ing, hitherto undreamed of, seem feasible, and, the 
God-given method thus forced upon one,—one being 
thus converted to it,—the wonderful thing happens. 
A sudden rush of understanding brings the complete 
realization that here indeed is the only way to God! 
And what sights one sees in nature—unfolding hills, 
shadowed roads, singing trees, a universe suddenly 
made vociferous with beauty and joy! The gallery 
of nature is so packed with masterpieces that to turn 
one’s eyes away from them and limit them to one’s 
own transient possessions—can this be said to be com- 
mon sense? 


THE CHASTENING HAND 


Thus we never achieve anything for ourselves, but 
are thrust by what beforehand seems a cruel, but 
afterward is hailed as a loving, hand, into the fullest 
measure of achievement. What we seem by our- 
selves to do is simply the result of our previous 
yielding to the inner voice. For it is always the 
inner voice that directs us. We thus yield our- 
selves up to the Unknown; and the Unknown, like 
a fairy godmother, touches us with a magic wand. 
We are transfigured and showered with blessings. 
We see even then, vaguely, that the supply is in- 
finite. 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 117 
WHAT IS SUFFERING? 


“How can a just God make all this suffering?” we 
hear some one saying from the imaginary world we 
have left behind. And we know that he is speaking 
from his own frightened material mind alone. We 
look back upon our own past tragedies and see that 
they were nothing. From the severely practical 
standpoint, suffering is the highest form of happiness, 
for it is the only process whereby we ascend to higher 
planes of understanding. What we suffer is only 
what we think we suffer, for in itself suffering is but 
an illusion. It is hard for the freshly wounded to 
accept this. But even science proves it, for science 
now declares there is no time and that all things are 
relative. 


Christ said: 


“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest.” 


We have only to place ourselves by our own act 
at a point where we harmonize with the universe, and 
we shall then see that suffering, which is founded on 
false time, is but a chimera of the mind. It is only 
through suffering that we enter finally into a sense 
of the spiritual; and it is only through the spiritual 
that, looking backward, we come to understand the 
illusion of suffering. 


118 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


To those who are struggling in the slough of 
despair, who have perhaps lost their health and 
fortune, or who are sated with luxury or ennui and 
the apparent disloyalty of “others,” perhaps I can 
best make my meaning clear through a simple 
illustration. 

Up to a comparatively few years ago it had always 
been supposed that there was no method of guiding 
any craft through water except by a rudder, and 
no other means of locomotion except by agencies un- 
der control of those on the vessel. But a few years 
ago a young American demonstrated that a boat 
could be guided from the shore by means of an in- 
visible current. As to who guides the man who 
guides this current is of course a problem in the back- 
ground. I mention it casually. 

Now let us suppose that you are sailing a craft 
of your own and that you have been so battered about 
by the winds and waves and drifting fruitlessly from 
port to port, hoping for happiness and tranquillity, 
that you are now sick of the whole miserable affair 
and ready to jump overboard and end it. Suppose 
that something within you, you know not what, seems 
to point out to the distant horizon and say to you that 
beyond lie peace and calm and quiet sailing. Sup- 
pose that all the pilots you know shout out to you to 
keep to the shore, but that heedless, you finally head 


MAN THE DREAM-GOD 119 


your frail craft through them and beyond them; and 
then, when you are quite out of sight of land, you 
suddenly come to realize that an invisible current is 
actually guiding your craft—a current not to be de- 
fined in words. 

This, briefly, is the experience of the mystic. Each 
one of us is part of the whole. There can be no- 
body else. All persons individually, no matter how 
dear they seem to us, that we falsely think of as some- 
body else, are in reality a part of ourselves, in so far 
as they are separate from the world, and belong on 
the spiritual plane. 

Christ’s words, to the last jot, then become illumi- 
nated. Our past sins then become voids, to be 
rapidly healed over with the spirit of universal Love. 

We see that out of the Unknown comes God, and 
directs us truly on our way. We throw off our 
material responsibilities, content to pass our time in 
communion with the source of our Being. New 
spiritual vistas are constantly opened to us. 

We know that we are immortal; that memory is 
only an illusion, in that it has confined us within the 
narrow limits of this false material life. 


ns 


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* ae 





THIS WICKED WORLD 


In this chapter the author takes up the question of science 
and biology, and contrasts the material point of view with 
the spiritual. 


THIS WICKED WORLD 


Ir is possible that two thousand years ago one man, 
equipped with all of the mechanical knowledge we 
possess to-day, could have manufactured an auto- 
mobile. No doubt it would have been a desperate 
undertaking, requiring patience and diplomacy in 
securing the codperation of others, and generally a 
great deal of hard work. Still, there is no reason 
to think it could not have been done. 

Two thousand years ago the same natural elements 
which go to make a motor were present, and the same 
mechanical laws governed. The only difference be- 
tween then and now is that now we know more about 
the action of certain forces than we did then. If we 
are willing to admit that there is such a thing as 
chronological succession, they have always been there, 
just as the unknown medium by means of which we 
communicate by radio has always been there. Only 
we didn’t happen to know it. Ten thousand years 
ago, or very much longer, there were reservoirs of 
oil waiting to be tapped, there were huge veins of 
coal waiting to be released. It is a highly dramatic 


thought which enables us to see man blindly groping 
123 


124 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


his way onward during those untold years, in total 
ignorance, while all around lay locked-up stores of 
energy needing only the magic touch of the wand of 
science to give him the material mastery of the 
world. And from this backward vision, is it not 
plain that, similarly, we are still blind to the infinite 
unknown sources of life that confront us—is it not 
right for us to believe that we are as yet only on the 
threshold of those spiritual glories which will, through 
trial and error, eventually be made plain to our 
vision? 


EVERYTHING COMES TO US 


We ourselves contribute nothing. It is a gross 
error to state that we originate anything. All we do, 
actually, is to release certain forces, thus getting 
them to work for us. If we can in time learn how to 
break up and release the energy in atoms, we shall 
then, apparently, be masters of the material universe. 

What happens when we thus succeed in “inventing” 
something new for our purpose is that we first think 
of something we want—this leading to desire. We 
keep thinking about it so persistently that quite un- 
consciously, and in a way automatically, we begin 
by trying all sorts of ways of getting at it—foolish 
ways at first which excite our own ridicule. Thus 


THIS WICKED WORLD 125 


most of the great discoveries in science have been 
ushered in by pioneers who have generally been 
laughed at for their pains, and occasionally put to 
death. The whole process is purely mental and has 
no validity outside of the consciousness. 

We can easily see how this law works in detail by 
examining some of the minor labor-saving devices of 
our own period. First we used hard tires on our high 
bicycles. Then it was discovered that a hollow tire 
pumped with air was better; was in fact so much 
better that it practically revolutionized transportation. 
After this, tires were gradually improved; first they 
went for a thousand miles; then two, three, four, and 
so on up to ten or fifteen thousand. They had al- 
ways been pumped up until it was discovered that 
not so much air, in proportion to the rubber, was 
needed; hence the balloon tire. Now the habit of 
making discoveries and then applying them is going 
on constantly everywhere. We are, in short, quite 
mad about it. We think of little else—all due to 
competition on the one hand and the possibility of 
enormous profits on the other. 

As I said, we create nothing. We release only. 
Langley’s flying-machine was pronounced a failure, 
yet it was afterward flown when somebody had 
learned how to fly with it. All we are doing all the 
time is to learn how. 


126 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


ARE WE ANY HAPPIER? 


And yet, in spite of all this astonishing record of 
scientific achievement, can it honestly be said that 
mankind is any happier than it was two thousand 
years ago? And why should this be so? 

The reason is simple, easily demonstrated by the 
experience of any one. It is that no reliance can be 
placed on any material thing to produce happiness. 
Whatever we may have gained has been spiritually, 
not materially. 

Take a group of children in a child’s home,— 
children who have n’t been used to anything,—and 
suddenly hand them a number of mechanical toys. 
They will snatch at them eagerly, even fight over 
them, and then as suddenly drop them and go back 
to some cheap invention of their own. ‘Thus the 
human race. 

I know an old man who has five fine motor-cars 
always on hand. He keeps trying new ones all the 
time; he has a number of children to whom he gives 
the used ones. He is unhappy. Nothing is more 
evident than that he must be, so far as these cars are 
concerned, for, although they are the latest and most 
expensive makes, he never keeps them; he is never 
satisfied with them. 

It seems almost an insult to the intelligence of my 


THIS WICKED WORLD 127 


readers to tell them all this when the evidence lies all 
about us. 

The desire to add something new to the collection 
of things we already have is not only universal, but in 
many respects commendable. There is no objection 
to it, if we understand it. But how few of us really 
do understand it? 

If we should all suddenly stop trying to “get on,” 
stop trying to make ourselves better materially, the 
visible world would collapse in short order. 

How is it possible, then, to reconcile these appar- 
ently opposite points of view? First, that no re- 
liance can be placed on any material thing, and 
second, that it is right to go on adding to our collection 
of material things? 

I propose to answer this question in what follows. 
But I call attention first to the undoubted fact that 
their conflicting claims are at the bottom of most of 
the differences of opinion among the greatest think- 
ers during the last two thousand years—under one 
guise or another. 


A MAD, BAD WORLD 


The best example I know of one side is Thomas 
a Kempis, and I mention his book, “The Imitation 
of Christ,” because it has probably been more widely 


128 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


and universally read than any other book in the 
world, except the Bible. Thomas a Kempis has but 
one message—abjure the world—cast it out utterly 
—it is worse than a bad world; it is an impossible 
world. And that is precisely why so many unhappy 
people have derived such lasting comfort from read- 
ing this book. It secretly flatters them (although 
that is not the intention), for it holds up to biting 
scorn and to burning indignation the very thing which 
has so wounded them—not only wounded them, but 
also held them up to scorn; therefore, when they read 
those burning words they realize that their own feel- 
ings are being expressed better than they can hope to 
express them. These feelings are justified. It is 
this that makes martyrs. 


GOOD AND BAD MARTYRS 


I venture to say right here that it has often seemed 
to me that the martyr spirit has been abused—I 
mean, it has been misdirected. When it is mixed 
with self-pity, when it is based on desire for exhibi- 
tion, then it is very bad. It has undoubtedly been 
used in this manner; probably at times we all have 
more or less of this abnormal strain in us. The 
real martyr, of course, is above all this; he is immune 
to material consequences. 


THIS WICKED WORLD 129 


Both Christ and Socrates were shining examples of 
those who died properly—that is to say, who gave 
up their bodies freely for a cause; certainly Christ 
died for the greatest of causes. But some martyrs 
have died because they liked it—because they glor- 
ied in it. We see them everywhere to-day; they are 
the ringleaders in that sort of sentimentality which 
has swept over such a large part of the globe—espe- 
cially in America. It is only a question of degree. 
There are loads of people who are just as much ad- 
dicted to self-sacrifice as others are to cigarettes. 
They steep themselves in service. That which in 
moderation is a part of a well-rounded human being 
becomes, when carried to extremes, an obsession. 
We are thus constantly erecting false images. 


A GREAT SPIRITUAL AWAKENING COMING 


The reconciliation of the two opposite points of 
view I have mentioned becomes easy if we under- 
stand that, in the spiritual world, discoveries and in- 
ventions are constantly being made, and, indeed, it 
also is not too much to say that at the present moment 
we are on the threshold of an awakening which, dur- 
ing the next fifty years, bids fair to carry the human 
race to heights at present unimagined, except by the 
few. It is precisely this renaissance of the spiritual 


130 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


already referred to and to which I would now call 
attention. The subject is so vast and the conse- 
quences are so great, that, before entering upon it, 
one may well pause for a moment in contemplation 
of that coming and universal Peace which passeth all 
or nearly all of our present understanding. Those 
of us, however, who have caught, at first fleeting, and 
again more lasting, visions of this peace will join 
me, I am sure, in the aspirations we feel for the com- 
ing of this Kingdom. 


TWO IN ONE 


It must first be fully understood and constantly 
kept in mind that, as a subject to be written about, 
Man has a seemingly dual personality. In reality, 
as I shall hope to make clear, he has only one person- 
ality; but for general practical common-sense pur- 
poses, we may say of ourselves that we are two 
people. We are conscious only by contrast. There 
is an ego, and a non-ego; or there is a good and a bad, 
a saint and a devil. If we wish to make a practical 
definition, we can employ the words of John Mase- 
field, who says: 


Man consists of body, mind, and imagination. His body 
is faulty, his mind untrustworthy, but his imagination has 
made him remarkable. Imagination is controlling and us- 


THIS WICKED WORLD 131 


ing the energy of which we are made. Those who succeed 
in this have access, through their partial energies, to all 
energy. The thoughts of these men have the divinity of all 
energy: they do not die. 


That is a very beautiful and sincere way of expressing 
the spiritual side of man. It is an admission, if 
you will, that man possesses some sort of material 
instrument, possibly composed of millions or tril- 
lions of nerve-centers, which enables him to vision 
the stars, to leave himself and his trivial concerns be- 
hind, so to speak, and mount on the wings of morn- 
ing to unmeasured heights. 

But how different is the attitude of the scientist to 
this faculty sublime! He dissects in the light of 
modern research, and declares their every flight can 
be accounted for in terms of sensation. ‘“‘No one,” 
he declares, “has been able to picture heaven except 
in sensual symbolism.” 

Thus man is two things: He is the known and the 
unknown. Each one of us is fully aware of that 
contrast in himself. 

So far as my visible, or at least material, self is 
concerned, I know almost exactly what I am capable 
of doing. Why? Because in numerous tests I have 
tried myself out. I know that on a golf-course, I 
will average, day in and day out, six strokes to a 
hole. I know that I can drive a car through traffic 


132 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


with a minimum of accident chances. I know when 
I am hungry, how much work of a given sort I can 
do in a day, and so on through a long list of things in 
which I have been more or less trained. 


WHAT I DONT KNOW 


On the other hand, I don’t know what I will do 
under unexpected conditions. I don’t know when I 
may lose my temper, when suddenly over some 
trivial thing I may shed tears, or what mistakes | 
may make in misjudging others or miscalculating 
various results in the course of a day. Sometimes | 
feel inspired, I seem to walk on air; at others my feet 
are leaden, my heart is heavy, I am saturated with 
despair. 

This, briefly, is the common lot. Each one of us 
has a double; and the conflict of the two personalities 
in us is probably what makes life such a gamble, and 
therefore, on the whole, so interesting. 

It is this subjective sense of contrast that shades 
into our thought about others, colors all our notions 
of literature, art, music, etc., and—as a result— 
keeps producing in us successive moods which are, 
or certainly seem to be, highly inconsistent. We take 
on atmospheres, according as we are sensitized. I 
have often succeeded temporarily in persuading a 


THIS WICKED WORLD 133 


man to believe something, so that his enthusiasm has 
mingled with mine. The next day we were both 
cold. Man goes along in a kind of zigzag, always, 
however, keeping a main course. Weare continually 
coming back to center. 


IDENTITY 


These two men I write of who are in us, or rather 
who go to make up what we ourselves are, are con- 
stantly varying in their relationship to each other. 
And inasmuch as this is so, they are therefore con- 
stantly varying in regard to their relationship to 
others about them. This fact in itself—which, if we 
contemplate it for a moment, seems complicated 
enough—is much more complicated by another fact, 
which is that each one of us leads an inner and an 
outer life. We present to the world a kind of camou- 
flage of our secret self. It is by this camouflage 
that we come to have an identity. Acute and experi- 
enced observers penetrate beneath this outer shell, 
and frequently may discover us as we are, or at 
least as we think we are. 

Having thus merely indicated in an offhand manner 
the various sections of human personality,—which is 
sufficient for my present purpose,—let me now go 


back to the Man himself. 


134 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


WHAT IS MAN? 


Man’s two personalities, which for convenience 
sake I shall term the known and the unknown, are 
constantly changing in their relationship, as he ad- 
vances along the line of human experience or grows 
older. At first he is not aware of his material self 
at all, except as it is some one else. He thus speaks 
of it as in the third person. Some one has named this 
material self “Bob,” and when he speaks of it he says, 
“Bob is thirsty,” just as we teach parrots to say, 
“Polly wants a cracker.” 

Now, is it now perfectly evident that this unknown 
Ego, or other hidden self, is the spiritual self, and 
are not the words of Christ plain, therefore, when he 
says: 

“Except ye be converted, and become as little chil- 
dren, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven”? 


Furthermore, this inner self, of which we are all 
more or less permanently, if fitfully, conscious, is at 
its best, or purest, in childhood. The souls of chil- 
dren have not become obscured by this thing which we 
call the world. As a man grows up, this process of 
obscuration becomes acute, as a general rule, in pro- 
portion to his material success and the perfection 
of his physical health. When these two depend- 


THIS WICKED WORLD 135 


encies, however, begin to decline, or when other 
catastrophes occur, he is frightened away from his 
material or dream self, and, pausing first upon the 
threshold of his inner self, timidly enters. Thus, 
step by step, with many advances and many reced- 
ings, he gradually comes to vision life in a double 
sense. He sees on the one hand the whole phantas- 
magoria of material existence called civilization, and 
on the other, his inner and gradually developed spir- 
itual vision begins to make out the unutterable and 
immeasurable spiritual universe as it unfolds before 
him. He goes from unreality to reality. 

These varying stages in which all men from birth 
to death find themselves account for so many violent 
differences of opinion; they account for sects, schools, 
and classes, such as agnostics, atheists, reformers, 
fanatics, philosophers, and so on. 


WHAT ARE WE REALLY HERE FOR? 


“What is it,” earnestly inquires one of these gentle- 
men in one of the numerous books offering us the 
secret of happiness, “what is it we are all of us 
looking for?” And he replies immediately and with 
the utmost confidence, “To get the most out of life?”’ 
Yet this is not the truthful answer, although it seems 
to be the correct one; which shows us how careful 
we must be in our statements. It is undoubtedly cor- 


136 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


rect as an observation upon the occupation of the 
majority, for this occupation, as we view it, is un- 
doubtedly to get the most out of life; yet its falsity 
becomes apparent when we ask any man if thus far 
the most he has got out of life is what he really 
intended to get. He will tell you that it is, as far as 
it has gone, but he is still hoping for more. Every 
man is therefore seeking for something which he has 
not yet got. In each case what we are after is an 
ideal. We must have something concrete to go by, 
so we grab whatever appears to us as being symbolic 
of this ideal; and because it is always falling short, 
we keep on grabbing. The right answer to my 
friend’s question, therefore, is not that we are really 
trying to get the most out of life, but that we are try- 
ing to discover an ideal which will render the things 
of this life superfluous or unnecessary, as a limited 
means of helping us to approximate a vision of our 
ideal. We are always dealing with substitutes, with 
makeshifts, and we know this, although not always 
willing to acknowledge it. Thus, in a very much 
more cryptic, underground, subtle manner, we come 
very close to the position of Thomas 4 Kempis, who 
admonishes us so earnestly to give up the things of 
this world in order that we may see God. For it is 
the vision of God, the Ultimate Reality, term it what 
you will, which we all seek; although this is not gen- 


THIS WICKED WORLD 137 


erally apparent. We come to see that, from two 
standpoints diametrically opposed to each other, men 
arrive at the same conclusion, namely, that no reli- 
ance can be placed on matter, and that whatever peace 
and happiness are achieved in this world must be 
through other sources. 


THE SEARCH FOR REALITY 


What are the sources? Thomas a Kempis (and 
the reader will understand that | am using him as a 
representative of the mystics), declares that there is 
only one source—God. Henry Ford declares that 
mankind can be lifted up through a right conserva- 
tion and manipulation of material machinery. The 
Rockefellers, deeply religious, feel much the same. 
They employ their material possessions to aid sci- 
ence in its fight against disease. They also use their 
possessions to bulwark our educational system. In 
each instance they are seeking to help fulfil an ideal. 
Their purpose may be mistaken; but just as the man 
who buys a beautiful object of art desires to symbol- 
ize some ideal, so do they make this effort. The two 
impulses are identical. We are always striving to 
reach out, through the material, unto the Unknown. 

Perhaps this is the right moment for me to convey 
by a few simple illustrations the reason for my belief 


138 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


that we are approaching a universal spiritual renais- 
sance; first prefacing this by the observation that my 
readers need not be astonished if up to the present 
moment I have scarcely, if at all, even hinted at re- 
ligion. Indeed the thing I am writing about is much 
bigger than man-made religion. It is much bigger 
than anything there is, because it takes in every- 
thing there is. It is God, it being understood of 
course that the term God is merely a symbol to ex- 
press the Unknown, the Universal, the Eternal, the 
Creator, Infinite, and so on. 


BUTTERFLIES AND ANTS 


Let us suppose there are two families, both equally 
well off. One family will splurge; the other will 
not. One family will live simply; the other ostenta- 
tiously. We see these contrasts constantly, so that 
we come to say that the amount of money necessary 
for maintenance depends upon one’s individual 
tastes. The difference between any two families in 
their attitude toward material things is a sure indica- 
tion of the line of progress. ‘Transportation and 
wireless are bringing together the peoples of the 
earth so fast that even before our eyes we can see 
the swift signs which manifest a certain spiritual 
awakening. A vast upheaval is taking place, and the 


THIS WICKED WORLD 139 


abhorred monsters, crawling things, hideous abnor- 
malities are coming to the surface and being borne 
off on the great tide of unreality. We should un- 
derstand that it is not given generally to the edu- 
cated, the intellectuals, the academicians, in fact, the 
so-called high thinkers, to understand these things, 
because almost all of the mental machinery erected 
by processes of culture is in itself based on the 
material senses. That is why so many of our intel- 
lectuals are pessimists. They throw up their hands 
and predict the death of civilization. They do not 
know that they are in reality predicting a new birth 
of man. 


THE IRONY OF THE INTELLECT 


“What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole 
world, and lose his own soul?” It is indeed a subtle 
satire on our boasted civilization that the only ones 
among us who, through our schools and colleges, are 
taught the art of expression, should be blinded to the 
truth by the very forces which have given them this 
art. The revolt from these material traditions which 
we have occasionally witnessed in men like the poet 
Shelley is merely evidence of the spirit of the true 
God breaking material bounds and cutting through 
formalism like lightning from Heaven. 


140 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


There are many other factors which, if it were pos- 
sible to make a scientific survey of mankind in gen- 
eral, should properly be taken into account. It 
would, indeed, be possible to make a list of the vari- 
ous classes of mankind in relation to their material 
sources of supply. The Nouveaux Riches would then 
be brought into sharp contrast with the Blue Bloods. 
Those below the pauper line—that is, over the world, 
the vast majority—would be tabulated not from the 
intellectual, but from the spiritual, side and their 
spiritual desires better appreciated. But among all 
these various species there is one class, comparatively 
small, which deserves our minute attention, for they 
offer a basis of study not presented by any other. 
These are the multimillionaires. 


THE MULTIMILLIONAIRES 


It must be emphasized here that the law of self- 
preservation is the supreme and universal rule among 
men everywhere. The exceptions are invariably ab- 
normalities. This law is so persistent that when a 
man has succeeded in removing himself from want, 
even when he has acquired possessions which solve 
completely the problem of maintenance, he still keeps 
on, impelled by the very inertia of his original im- 
pulse, to accumulate. It is often remarked that a 


THIS WICKED WORLD 141 


man with fifty thousand a year is poorer than a man 
with five; the reason being that his family has ac- 
quired extravagant tastes, social ambitions, etc. But 
there is always a limit beyond which so much money 
has been accumulated that there is no material wish 
which may not be immediately gratified. When this 
limit has been reached, several things may occur. 
The man may become a miser, as in the case of 
Russell Sage. He may become a gambler for 
material power, as in the case of E. H. Harriman. 
He may become a kind of material social reformer, 
as in the case of Henry Ford. Whatever he does 
become, it is highly important for us to remember 
that there is a minute but quite distinct, class of men 
existing in various parts of the globe who have ut- 
terly and completely removed themselves from any 
material struggle. What they do, therefore, how they 
live, what they think, all these things have a direct 
bearing upon the problem presented by Thomas 
a Kempis. 


THE TWO ATTITUDES 


I have attempted to show that there is much in 
common between the attitude of Thomas a Kempis 
and Henry Ford. Mr. Ford has repeatedly admitted 
the useless quality of possessions so far as one’s self is 


142 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


concerned. And what else is there? “A man can 
wear but one suit, eat only three meals a day, and 
sleep in one bed,” declares Mr. Ford in effect. This 
is trite. It has often been said before; but then every- 
thing has been said before, and its significance is due 
to the relationship shown between itself and other 
things seemingly inimical to it. Ascetics like Thomas 
a Kempis assert that the world must be completely 
abandoned. All along the line of history are numer- 
ous examples of saints who have given up luxury and 
possessions to take the vows of poverty. Henry 
Ford arrives at the same conclusion in quite another 
manner—through satiety. But so saturated is he 
with material things that his spiritual aspirations— 
and they are undoubtedly in evidence—go out in 
their growth through material things. Henry Ford 
believes the world can be regenerated by Capital plus 
Love. Thomas 4 Kempis believes that Capital must 
be eliminated. It does not appear to me that his 
religion, as fundamental as it undoubtedly is, is a 
religion of pure love. 


POSSESSIONS BECOME SO MUCH DEADWOOD 


In other words, just as one’s spiritual understand- 
ing becomes clear enough, then the things of this 
world drop off quite naturally; they have no real 


THIS WICKED WORLD 143 


meaning. This process is a gradual one, but it is 
really much swifter than any one would suppose. 
One who has begun to derive his spiritual sustenance 
from God direct, moves about in this material world 
without fear, holding dominion, mingling, as Christ 
did, with publicans and sinners, himself a common 
man, but all the time holding himself separate. The 
attitude which has to do penance, the wailing-and- 
beating-one’s-breast attitude is in itself evidence that 
there is something spiritually wrong. Said Christ: 


“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and 
one of them shall not fall to the ground without your 
Father? But the very hairs of your head are all 
numbered. Fear ye not—” 


Enough has been written already in these pages 
to show that there are diversities of gifts. It should 
be remembered, however, that no matter how complex 
may seem our modern civilization, its various phases 
must all be referred to a common origin, namely, the 
human soul. The two questions “What do I think 
about it?” and “How do I feel about it?”’ comprehend 
all things. There is but one mind. Those things 
which rise up to awe and confuse us under various 
forms of personality—even as intellectuals, philoso- 
phers, etc., are but chimeras of the consciousness, 
Man is indestructible, immortal. 


144 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


““AM I SECURE?” 


Therefore, it becomes evident that what man really 
desires out of life is not happiness, not absence of 
struggle, but a sense of security. I venture the as- 
sertion that if one man among us all, inheriting the 
common instincts of the race, should be offered im- 
munity from those trials common to us all, he would 
refuse it instantly. He would not care to be differ- 
ent. The acceptance of such an offer would im- 
mediately set him apart from his kind. It would 
rob him of everything, not only that makes life 
painful, but that makes it dear. The best thing 
we can say of any man is that he is human; he is 
like the rest of us. That was the best thing said of 
Christ. 

The only known way of enlightenment is by what 
we term suffering. Trials tend to perfection. Fear 
is the greatest negative power in the world, for it is 
by finally overthrowing it, we conquer. If there 
never had been any fear, there would never have been 
any progress. 


WHY SHOULD WE BE GRATEFUL TO ADAM? 


What a truly wonderful thing it was on Adam’s 
part to fall. Where would we be to-day if he 


THIS WICKED WORLD 145 


had n’t? There would have been nothing to atone 
for, nothing to live down, naught to overcome. I 
venture also the assertion that any man with a pint 
of red blood in his veins, placed in Adam’s position, 
would have done the same thing. The great criti- 
cism to be made against Adam, it seems to me, is 
not that he fell, but that he never tried afterward to 
defend himself, he was such a coward about it. That 
is why I personally have so little patience with the 
race of ascetics and martyrs. Not only are they not 
good sports, but they have also bred such a race of 
bad ones. Is it not plain that we can keep the world 
where it ought to be, that with Christ we can hold 
dominion over land and sea, that we can learn to 
walk with God and see visions in the clouds, without 
eternally beating our breasts, sleeping on thorns and 
starving our bodies? 

“Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat 
or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what 
ye shall put on.” 

It would seem to be the height of impudence on the 
part of those professing to be followers of Christ so 
flagrantly to disobey his express teaching as is done 
by the ascetics. The passion for self-inflicted pun- 
ishment under the form of penance, as I point out 
elsewhere, is nothing but a material form of sub- 
jective sensualism. Christ’s words are explicit: 


146 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


“Take no thought.” He also says that those who first 
seek the Kingdom will have all these things added 
unto them. Let us remove all limitations and be 
free! 


DAYLIGHT AHEAD 


That is the way the spiritual awakening will come, 
indeed is now coming to the human race. It will 
come as a great revolution in which those who have 
been blind will see at first through a glass darkly 
and then face to face. That is precisely what is al- 
ready happening. Signs of it are everywhere. The 
seeming decadence of society, the crimes, the di- 
vorces, the hideous vulgarities, all of these things are 
as naught compared with The New Day. 


FEELING THE TRUE GUIDE 


It is always what we feel that counts, and not what 
we think. 

The unrealities which envelop us in countless forms 
of matter and personality seem to be real only be- 
cause we allow ourselves to be so completely ter- 
rorized by them. It is truly astonishing how at the 
first decision on our part, even though it be made in 
fear and trembling, they fall away from us, and in the 
twinkling of an eye we recede from them and get our 
growing sense of harmony in the infinite spiritual 


THIS WICKED WORLD 147 


world. Christ has made this unfoldment so plain 
that one has but to read his words to understand 
(“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard 
seed”), provided there is a desire to understand. 
But just as Christ has tried to make his spiritual 
meaning plain to his disciples by using material sym- 
bols (his illustrations being invariably taken from 
common objects in nature), so, in order to under- 
stand the absolute perfection of spiritual dawn, we 
must approach this understanding through the so- 
called visible world. 


THE SPIRITUAL IS ONLY COMMON SENSE 


If one may judge from ordinary observations and 
conversations overheard, most unthinking people 
seem to regard any man with spiritual tendencies as a 
long-haired and side-whiskered fanatic who goes 
about snatching cigarettes from the lips of wicked 
women—some one who can not be trusted to fulfil any 
of the ordinary obligations of life; or else he is re- 
garded as a kind of superior person who does n’t 
“mingle,” who, for some cryptic reason, must out- 
wardly be regarded with respect, but who is secretly 
set down as merely another disciple of the Blah 
School. These two conceptions are naturally sub- 
ject to many variations, but in general they may be 


148 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


merged into the criticism that the spiritual person has 
something the matter with him which cannot be cured 
and should be given a fairly wide berth. All this is 
more or less inevitable, because, from time im- 
memorial, fakers and hypocrites of all sorts have 
taken on the spiritual atmosphere in order to put 
over some of their frame-ups on their victims; and 
so numerous have they been that the whole spiritual 
content or picture has been changed to support these 
derisive conceptions in the minds of honest people. 
The actual truth is that those who have any spiritual 
development (and they constitute a large and im- 
portant class, a large proportion outside of the 
churches) are severely practical, with scarcely any 
notion at all of spiritual terms. Many of these men 
and women are doing the most important work being 
done in the world, certainly carrying the burdens. 
They are scarcely aware of their oneness with God, 
the Unknown, and certainly would have no time to 
talk of it. The English-speaking world at least is 
full of organized bodies of professional Christians 
who, obeying merely gregarious instincts, form them- 
selves into groups for purely social purposes under 
the outward form of religion. These masses of 
people, so far as their organizations (or churches) 
are concerned, have scarcely any notion of spiritual 
values; if they did, they would understand that spir- 


THIS WICKED WORLD 149 


itual development can only come in silence and in- 
dividual isolation, and not in church suppers, get- 
together services, etc. 


“BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD’ 


True spiritual development in any individual is not 
something far off or to be defined by the platitudi- 
nous patter of salvation. It consists of moments, of 
flashes, sudden illuminations, which take place any- 
where and is in effect a slow-gathering sense of 
security, the absolute understanding that the world of 
the senses is unreal, that one is immortal, without 
beginning or end, and that no harm can come. 

What we see in the visible world are what Sweden- 
borg refers to as correspondences, and other writers 
call manifestations. It is extremely difficult to trace 
these vast unrealities back to their source because, as 
a matter of fact, they have no source; they are voids, 
the children of chaos; thus the war, the massacres, 
countless crimes and their attendant consequences, 
jazz, divorce, murder. 

And these are nothing. To those who have entered 
unto a spiritual understanding, these things, to- 
gether with the beauty of the world, are all resolved 
into their proper place in the consciousness. They 
vanish. 


150 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


REALITY 


The unknown becomes the only reality—all things 
are reversed. And as soon as the spiritual law is 
thus unfolded, all the problems of life begin to re- 
cede. This does not mean for one moment, as I 
have tried to point out, that perfection is attained, or 
that all pain or disharmony ceases. But the differ- 
ence between this attitude and the other is the differ- 
ence between life and death. It becomes from this 
moment of conversion our constant occupation to dis- 
cover not only each day, but each hour, some new un- 
folding of our understanding of the spiritual law. 
We have retrogressions, haltings; but these do not 
matter. We know there is a God, that he is ever 
present, that nothing is too little or too infinite for 
Him. One of the most interesting, indeed the most 
infinitely satisfying, things about our progress are the 
moments of truly incredible illumination which come 
to us immediately after some halting, some problem 
which at the time seemed utterly hopeless. As we 
go on, these problems first keep confronting us, as 
it seems endlessly. No sooner is one disposed of, 
than another takes its place. After a succession of 
them have been solved, however, we acquire a kind 
of steady faith, a sense of security which acts upon 
us, even in dark moments, like a gyroscope. Thus, 


THIS WICKED WORLD 151 


slowly, our understanding is built up. How futile is 
it then for some scientist to tell us that nothing is 
known beyond the senses. 


WHEN TRUTH COMES 


What actually happens becomes very clear. The 
hitherto unknown spiritual world unfolds the universe 
with its absolute perfection, which has always been 
and always will be. Just as the law which, in the 
material world, makes the radio possible has always 
existed, so in the spiritual world the law which makes 
us see that our every need must be fulfilled has like- 
wise always been. It is we ourselves who have 
changed and who must inevitably go on changing until 
we finally fully enter into the Kingdom. Thus, by 
what I may term a quite natural or normal process, 
we overcome the world, that is to say, the world drops 
away from us. 

And what is this spiritual law I write of? It is so 
simple as to be defined in a few words. 


“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. 

This is the first great commandment. 

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments 
hang all the law and the prophets.” 


152 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


If we apply these simple rules to every problem, we 
shall see that every problem is immediately solved. 
War would cease. There would be plenty for all. 
Instead of man-made art, religion, literature, etc., we 
should be absorbed in the eternal beauties of a uni- 
verse so beautiful that no words can describe it. If, 
for instance, we exclaim over the beauty of St. 
Peter’s in Rome, think of how much more beautiful 
would be a community of men and women bound to- 
gether wholly by the ties of a universal love. That 
would never mean that St. Peter’s would have to be 
scrapped. On the contrary, St. Peter’s would then 
have a new beauty, a more perfect glory. It would 
be illuminated with all the transcendent colors of the 
spiritual universe. True art and true religion are 
identical. The understanding of this sets us free. 
We cannot sin, no matter what we seem to do. 


THE INTELLECTUALS 


In this chapter the author continues his reflections, level- 
ing his text at the intellectuals, explaining their internal 
machinery, and indicating the unreality and insubstantiality 
of their motives. 


THE INTELLECTUALS 


Wuart is an intellectual? 

A. man may be an excellent writer and yet not 
possess natural intelligence. 

For a number of years I have wondered why it 
is that no writer, apparently, has had either the in- 
itiative or the courage to define that species of hu- 
man being now somewhat popularly known as an 
intellectual. Some years ago, in quest of mate- 
rial for my own public, I wrote to a well-known 
woman writer, herself a full-fledged representative 
of the intellect, to write an article about intellec- 
tuals. She was known then as a “highbrow,” a 
term now going out of use, and was the author of 
many reflective essays and stories of a very superior 
order. Being somewhat on the inside, I knew that 
this woman was not averse to accepting good money, 
and I was prepared to pay her double what she was 
in the habit of receiving, for her work was so precious 
(as they say in French, so précieuse) that it was 
limited to a few high-brow magazines. For instance, 
she was glad to receive seventy-five dollars for a 


story which, in the circle of intellectuals, was re- 
155 


156 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


corded as a masterpiece, whereas low people, who 
were popular, were getting all the way up to a thou- 
sand. This woman scorned me, and for a long time 
I could n’t understand why, until it occurred to me 
that there is not only honor, but business, among 
intellectuals. Self exposure is unprofitable. The 
intellectual pose, sad as this may seem, is almost al- 
together based on business principles. An _intel- 
lectual may be roughly defined as one who is edu- 
cated, but not intelligent. This is perhaps a little 
rough, and not strictly accurate; but as Shakespeare 
once remarked, “’t will serve.” To illustrate: A 
young man I have known for a long time, and who 
undoubtedly comes under the classification of intel- 
lectual (although he is a very human and genial 
enough person now)—this young man once secured a 
position with a woman’s magazine of large circula- 
tion. After he had been there for some weeks, he 
went to one of the editors one day and said he had an 
article which he thought the magazine might like to 
print, but was in some doubt as to whether it was 
suitable. The editor, in reply, said: “Why don’t 
you ask your wife to read it? Being a woman, she 
will probably be able to tell you whether it is right 
for our magazine.” The young man smiled loftily 
and replied, “Ah, but you know my wife never reads 
your magazine.” He did not stay there so very long 


THE INTELLECTUALS 157 


afterward. This little episode, if we happen to be in 
“society,” would be classified as a lack of tact. But 
among editorial cave men, it is known by the phrase 
“not all there.” 


THE PROSE IS THE THING 


Still, we must always make allowances. So far 
as base coin in quantities is concerned, every intel- 
lectual not only knows, by a sort of instinct, that his 
“appeal” is limited, but that his only chance to build 
up any kind of a permanent “trade” is never to forget 
his pose. One of the most distinguished intellectuals 
in this country, a tart critic who has acquired an in- 
ternational reputation, wrote in his beginning days a 
book of silly verse, reeking with soft sentiment. A 
friend of mine, himself one of the most polished poets 
in this country, who has a horror of anything resem- 
bling affectation, came across this little volume by 
accident. He pounced upon it, seeing its possibil- 
ities, copied off some of the verses with the author’s 
name and, adding a few nice comments, sent it to a 
newspaper. It is almost needless to say that the boys 
in the newspaper office, who are not noted for tender 
treatment, grabbed this copy and maliciously put it 
in the most conspicuous place they could find on the 
editorial page. My friend, who is very careful about 


158 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


his statements, told where he had seen the book, which 
was in the New York Public library. Thereupon the 
enraged author hot-footed around there and made 
strenuous efforts to get it suppressed. My recollec- 
tion is that the library people refused and that the 
book is still there. 

While in one sense all this seems disgusting, viewed 
from the trenches, it must be remembered that the 
intellectual is never so bad as he seems. His posi- 
tion may be defined in the words of a celebrated 
villain, Jago, who said: 


Who steals my purse steals trash; .. . 

But he that filches from me my good name 
Robs me of that which not enriches him 
And makes me poor indeed. 


THE CASE OF R. H. DAVIS 


One of the most distressing cases I know was the 
treatment of Richard Harding Davis. He was made 
to appear as a “highbrow” or intellectual, and many 
newspaper men, most of whom were secretly jealous 
of his success, never lost an opportunity to sting him 
with a paragraph. Two stories about him, neither 
of which was true, were eagerly printed and went the 
rounds. One was to the effect that among all the 


THE INTELLECTUALS 159 


girl photos which reposed upon his dressing-table was 
one bearing the legend “She does not bore me,” and 
the other was that he once registered at a hotel 
“Richard Harding Davis and valet,” and some rough 
person put after his line “John Smith and valise.” 
Unfortunately, Davis had an affected, egotistic man- 
ner, and apparently liked to talk of nothing but him- 
self. I took luncheon with him one day just after 
he had returned from Russia, where he had gone to 
report the coronation of the czar. His personal de- 
scription of the coronation seemed to convey the idea 
that Richard Harding Davis, and not Nicholas, was 
being crowned, and that, indeed, the whole affair had 
been arranged by the Russian court in order that he 
might possibly write something about it for the Amer- 
ican papers. ‘This affectation in Davis, however, was 
actually due to a kind of innate modesty. He blurted 
out things about himself to hide his embarrassment. 
He was never anything but a boy, taking delight in his 
exploits, with himself as hero, in precisely the same 
way that he wrote. His enormous dramatic or story- 
telling talent drew his own personality into the swirl 
of his talk. Once come to know him, his real char- 
acter was evident. Of course, the newspaper boys 
saw him only on the surface, and many of them said 
and wrote mean things about him, when they would 


160 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


have gone to any length if they could have accom- 


plished what he did. 


WHERE THEY CAME FROM 


The intellectuals, as they are somewhat vaguely 
known as a group, seem to have originated in Russia. 
This was in prerevolution days, and they were obliged 
to be secretive, as many of them were socialists, or 
disciples of Karl Marx. One of the most interesting 
of the Russian intellectuals was Prince Peter Alexey- 
evitch Kropotkin, whose “Memoirs of a Revolution- 
ist” is one of the great books of all time. As the 
European war broke, in 1914, there was a pro- 
nounced stirring among writers, this incipient move- 
ment originating in European studios, where in 
art the cubists were being born, and in poetry the free 
verse and imagist forms were coming into notice. 
Naturally, such an upheaval as the war lifted to the 
surface of things many strange fish. Since the Armi- 
stice we have brought into being the word intelligent- 
sia, a word that is not yet in the dictionaries and of 
which no one seems to know the precise meaning. It 
seems to be, in general, a kind of lower form of intel- 
ligence than that of the intellectual. Apparently it 
has no singular form, which would seem to indicate 
that a member of the intelligentsia cherishes as his 
idea to be “all things to all men.” 


THE INTELLECTUALS 161 


IMPORTANCE OF LOCALITY 


If we are to classify the intellectuals at all, how- 
ever, and do it with any kind of accuracy, we must 
consider the locality. There is, of course, in every 
community, no matter how small, one or more intel- 
lectuals. If the community is large enough, a group 
is formed, and the latest vibrations from Paris, New 
York, Boston, and Chicago are duly recorded and 
assimilated. In the old days, Boston, technically 
described as a state of mind, long held the supremacy 
as the intellectual center of the country. One of 
the funniest things in all American literature is the 
account by W. D. Howells, in his inimitable little 
book “My Mark Twain” (almost the best bit of biog- 
raphy I ever read), of Mark Twain’s celebrated 
speech on December 17, 1877, at the dinner given 
by the “Atlantic” staff to John G. Whittier on his 
seventieth birthday. Clemens, then a comparatively 
young man with an incipient reputation, memorized 
his speech beforehand. He dramatized the notables 
at the table—Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, Emer- 
son—as bleary outcasts in a log cabin, putting low 
language into their mouths. He could n’t stop, as he 
knew nothing else. The shock was terrible. “My 
sense of disgrace does not abate. It grows,’’ wrote 


Mark to Howells later. Charles Dudley Warner 


162 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


tried to pass it off in the general gloom that followed 
by remarking, “Well, Mark, you ’re a funny fellow.” 
It was not until nearly thirty years after that this 
immortal speech, in which our greatest humorist had 
taken a true fall out of the intellectuals, was recog- 
nized on its merits. 


THE CLAIMS OF CHICAGO 


Some few years ago we were all similarly shocked 
when a notable critic gravely announced that Chicago 
was then the intellectual center. Those of us in the 
metropolis who were privileged to sit at the feet of 
some young man who had been transferred from the 
“Boston Transcript” to the “Times” or “World,” or 
were receiving daily zsthetic ablutions at the hands 
of some Harvard graduate who had matriculated in 
dramatic art, had a fixed idea in our minds that New 
York was secure in its intelligentsia—it could be 
reached from Petrograd or Paris several hours sooner 
than Chicago. This critic’s pronouncement, how- 
ever, was of course final. The London “Times” had 
praised him. That was enough. Besides, he pointed 
out some of the men in Chicago who were preém- 
inent. Since then the balance of intellect has shifted 
somewhat in favor of New York. 


THE INTELLECTUALS 163 


By this time my readers, who have without doubt 
become wary and suspicious of my footless attempt 
to define the intellectuals and who perhaps wonder 
why they seem to have so much to do with religion, 
will conclude that the case is hopeless, and walk out 
on me. LKven if we are crude and quite possibly vul- 
gar, however, let us go on for another lap and see if 
we cannot do a little better in our definition by a proc- 
ess of elimination. For instance, Booth Tarkington 
is not an intellectual. He writes stories which depict, 
with extraordinary fidelity, the actual life of the 
American people. Furthermore, he does not secretly 
depend upon indecency. I do not mean to imply that 
all intellectuals are indecent. Nevertheless, we must 
admit that there is a Semitic strain in a great deal of 
our intellectual stuff, and it must be admitted that 
there is a kind of subtle and poisonous indecency 
among certain Semitics which is not the kind of stuff 
we inherited from such men as William Bradford, 
Daniel Boone, William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, 
and other pioneers of America. 


COMPARISONS 


But, to go over on the other side of the fence for a 
moment, there is a sense in which Edith Wharton, 


164 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


undoubtedly our greatest woman writer, is an intel- 
lectual. In thus making an intellectual distinction 
between Mrs. Wharton and Mr. Tarkington—and, it 
must be admitted, to her disparagement—I am fully 
aware that I am on delicate ground. The fact is that 
Mrs. Wharton has gained intellectually by long so- 
journ in Kuropean atmospheres, she has correspond- 
ingly lost as a true portrayer of America. Where 
America—as in the life of its metropolis and in its 
“high society’—parallels or matches similar Euro- 
pean strata, Mrs. Wharton’s touch is sure, her art un- 
questioned. But if America is different from any 
or all the other nations in the world, isn’t that what 
we want to have portrayed for us? Isn’t that genu- 
ine literature, as distinguished from the purely intel- 
lectual? And how can Mrs. Wharton do this when 
she abandons her country and goes elsewhere to get 
her facts? The same thing was true of Henry 
James. His work thus deteriorated constantly as he 
grew older. He had enormous talent. He had a 
fine soul, as souls go. His conceit—especially about 
his dramatic performances—was the conceit of a 
four-year-old. But if he had lived here and done 
as Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson are do- 
ing, he might have escaped entirely being an intel- 
lectual and become as great as they are. 


THE INTELLECTUALS 165 


UNPATRIOTIC ? 


What I particularly dislike about the attitude of 
all so-called intellectuals is their practice of throw- 
ing mud at their own country, when they really don’t 
understand any more about it than the man in a bar- 
ber shop. Quite naturally, compared with decadent 
European states, we are common, ordinary, vulgar, 
and so on. I myself hate a lot of things we are do- 
ing, just as any man hates certain primitive things 
in himself, and in this book I have not hesitated to 
say so. But it certainly requires what so many in- 
tellectuals have not, namely, common sense, in order 
to see that many of the things we are accomplishing 
in this country—as wasteful, as indeed sinful as we 
are—are things which have never before been done 
in the history of mankind. The intellectual, for ex- 
ample, would scorn to use the word Love, except 
in some derisive or off-hand intellectuality. He 
could n’t, because if he did, it would damage his 
reputation for tartness by so much. Therefore, do 
you not see quite plainly that a reputation for any 
particular kind of thing is dangerous, because it is 
limiting? If such a thing can be imagined as an 
intellectual going to a Methodist camp-meeting and 
being converted, nobody would ever know it,—at 


166 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


least the probabilities are that nobody would ever 
know it,—because he would be ashamed to admit it. 

The truth is that the mere cultivation of our intel- 
lects carries an enormous risk. If we make this an 
exclusive process and fail to keep in the thick of our 
ordinary occupations, such as marrying and having 
children and playing games and being generally 
foolish, then we are bound to lose out in the long run, 
just as Henry James lost out. Nothing is so impor- 
tant to our intellectuals—whoever they may be—as 
themselves and their daily utterances. And nothing 
is SO unimportant to everybody else. 


THERE ARE GRADES 


I could give here a tentative list of American in- 
tellectuals, with intelligence percentages such as they 
use in business concerns and colleges to determine 
such things. If a man were a hundred per cent in- 
tellectual, without any reservations, that would clas- 
sify him as hopeless. Reservations would have to 
be made, and even with this handicap, there is always 
a chance that a pure intellectual will reform and be- 
come human and a useful member of society. I 
could give such a list, I say, but I refrain. It is not 
yet, as we low people say who indulge in clichés, 
“the psychological moment.” This chapter is only 


THE INTELLECTUALS 167 


a pioneer article—about ten years ahead of its time. 
When such a list is compiled, however, it ought to be 
done by a committee of two—one supreme intellec- 
tual, and one ordinary human being, who can, how- 
ever, read and write. He ought to be fairly strong, 
able to beat up his fellow-member if necessary, but 
restrained enough to let his fellow-member have due 
justice in his judgment. 


SOME UNINTELLECTUALS 


At present, we know some of the “plain folks” who 
are not intellectuals. George Washington was not. 
Abraham Lincoln was not. 

I have no intention of disparaging the intellect too 
much. To write real words that hang together, or to 
do things which are worth while over a period of 
time, one must have some of it to make a go. And 
besides, we cannot really say that the intellectuals 
are, after all, much worse than the rest of us. They 
may be much like many congressmen who, having 
tried everything else, are obliged to be congressmen. 
So an intellectual has to fall back on the only asset 
he has—his intellect—and grub along as best he can. 
It is certainly unfair to stick at him too hard. He 
has to make a living. His pose is his purse. It is 
just as necessary for him to poke fun at Methodists 


168 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


and Main Street strollers as it is that every Presi- 
dential candidate, as soon as he is nominated, should 
be reported as attending church services and holding 
up babies at railway stations and publicly kissing 
them. 


INTELLECT AND WORK 


Some years ago I was in need of a secretary, and a 
young woman applied for the position. She was a 
graduate of one of our leading colleges. She had 
traveled extensively abroad both in Europe and the 
Orient, and spoke German, French, and, I think, 
Italian. She had also studied stenography and type- 
writing. Her father, once wealthy, had spared no 
expense on her education, and she came to me well 
recommended from a prominent man for whom she 
had worked. I was at first so abashed by her over- 
powering superiority that when I escaped from her 
presence at night my wife had to fan me to sleep. At 
the end of a short time, however, I discovered that, 
although she could sail all around any of us in 
academic knowledge, she didn’t get on. She re- 
sented the office manager, whom she considered an un- 
cultured person, and I never could count on her get- 
ting her work done. I told her finally to go, but she 
suddenly broke down and pleaded so hard that I 
suggested that perhaps a little rough treatment might 


THE INTELLECTUALS 169 


do her good. In a year she became a remarkably 
efficient woman. 

What was her trouble? It was quite simple. She 
had never learned how to work. 

And that, I believe, is one trouble with so many 
intellectuals. Many of them are so smart that it’s 
painful. They generally have some trick of talent, 
which carries them along until they finally acquire a 
positively uncanny skill in evading work. Along 
with this they get a fictitious reputation for judgment 
on all sorts of things of which they know nothing. 
This attitude might seem in itself to be quite above 
any material or financial consideration, were it not 
for the fact that the principal conversation of a large 
proportion of intellectuals is taken up with how 
much money they are making, or hope to make. We 
must not blame them for that. Shakespeare was a 
business man, looking to the pounds, shillings, and 
pence. The trouble comes when you attempt to ad- 
just your own private practices to your publicly 
expressed sentiments. 


BIG MEN VERY ORDINARY FELLOWS 


The big men are all commonplace. When you 
meet a man who is abnormally bright, who has a flow 
of wonderful words, who is very interesting and very 


170 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


clever, it is generally safe to distrust him. His gift 
may be largely a substitute for work. It is true 
that many intellectuals work very hard and ac- 
complish much, but if they succeed, in the right sense, 
it will be found that in proportion to their success they 
tone down their cleverness and rely more upon their 
capacity for work. The world is run by hard labor. 
There is nothing else to it than that. 

The fault does not lie with the young intellectuals 
themselves, so many of them who have, since the 
war, come out of college and joined the intelligentsia. 
The fault les with the fact that they have never been 
taught how to work. They therefore naturally fall 
back on what talents they have, make as much noise 
as possible, and hope to “get by” with it. They never 
get by. But many of them wake up in time to settle 
down to hard work. 


THE POVERTY OF WORDS 


The lack of spiritual discernment and natural in- 
telligence among intellectuals generally is due to the 
fact that language is the lowest and feeblest form 
of expression. 

They become so much occupied with the mere jug- 
gling of words, at which they attain great skill, it is 
impossible for them to understand that, by doing this, 





THE INTELLECTUALS 171 


they have pinned themselves down to a very minute 
fraction of the universe. There is small difference 
between an intellectual and a sleight-of-hand_per- 
former. 

Virtually all the big writers were bad writers. 
Skill in words and volubility in speech are both signs 
of inferiority. The exceptions to this rule are rare. 

Twelve thousand words is as much of a vocabulary 
as is used by the most prolific writers. Think of lim- 
iting the universe to twelve thousand words! It isn’t 
being done. 

If you doubt this, try a simple experiment. Con- 
sider all the feelings you have had in the course of a 
day, and then try to express them in a few words, or in 
many. 


WHEN THE INTELLECT KNOWS ITS PLACE 


Is, then, education so futile, and are people to be 
condemned merely because they have been given a 
talent for self-expression? Is there nothing in cul- 
ture, and can it be said that a great poet has not a finer 
gift than a common laborer? 

Certainly not. The case against the intellectuals is 


nnt ey Ee oY hee RM epe ag iy ee i RARE ace Py | je thax By soe ara eee bos aa oe 


172 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


country to name several men who have learning and 
culture and, indeed, every intellectual quality in 
abundance, and yet who, as I have intimated, would 
not be classed as intellectuals. 

The intellect, as this material world goes, is a very 
necessary part of our make-up. But then, so are 
other things. We depend upon our stomachs to as- 
similate food to carry us over from one day to an- 
other. We depend upon our education and general 
mental development to earn our daily bread and to 
keep us from being run over by Ford cars. 

All these “parts” are in the same general category. 
They belong in the world of matter. The moment we 
bow down to and worship any one of them, we are 
slaves, bowing before the false images of unreality. 

Our real selves are born of the spirit, and the 
really great men of the earth reveal their spirits by 
their mastery of matter. That is why so many of 
them have taken so little pains with the mediums 
through which they spoke. 


THE ROAD TO DESTRUCTION 


In this chapter, The Problem of Suicide, the author goes 
back to the individual, and shows how he may destroy him- 
self by depending entirely upon material things. 


THE ROAD TO DESTRUCTION 


On the broad highway of materialism which the 
great majority of men travel, or at least appear to, 
there are three forces which destroy their thousands 
and tens of thousands. These are money, divorce, 
and suicide. 

These three dragons (we may as well term them 
thus) are intimately related to one another. Suicide 
is merely the legitimate offspring of the other two. 

Three of my own friends, one of them very close 
to me, and others near enough for me to observe their 
gradual decline into this oblivion, have committed 
suicide. In addition I have observed numerous 
other cases. 

From confessions I have heard and from a perusal 
of the lives of many men, I am convinced that the 
tendency to commit suicide, although latent, is prac- 
tically universal. I believe that the great majority 
of men and women some time Juring their lives en- 
tertain thoughts of self-destruction. Statistics are 
easily accessible through proper channels. What I 
am now attempting to show is that suicide is but the 


logical and inevitable end to a life given up to 
175 


176 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


material things, without corresponding development 
of internal resources. 

It is a spiritual disease, or rather it is due to a 
spiritual lack. 


HOW IT BEGINS 


The first symptoms of a tendency to suicide are a 
kind of selfishness, accompanied by a shrinking from 
contact with others, or perhaps I should say an evasion 
of disagreeable things coming through others; for 
in many cases, the suicide is not only outwardly cheer- 
ful, but keeps up his contact with many others to the 
end. The process which leads toward suicide is often 
so subtle that the victim himself has no notion of it. 
His first visualization of the act may take place years 
before the act itself. 

If we are materially successful, if we have plenty 
of money, it is quite natural for us to indulge in 
luxuries—and similarly, to avoid the things we dis- 
like. This twin process results often in a fatal hold 
upon a human being. Offsetting it is native char- 
acter, and the realization of the danger, which not 
alone puts us on the defensive, but helps us to over- 
come our material ease. It by no means follows that 
because a human being is rich, he is selfish. Con- 
sidered by itself, money is a nonentity. It is strictly 


THE ROAD TO DESTRUCTION Wi 


neutral. In the hands of idle, selfish people without 
discipline or natural intelligence, it may become an 
enormously destructive force. The moral law here 
steps in and wreaks vengeance upon the actors them- 
selves, who, growing more constantly restless, at 
length yield to the despair which comes from satiety. 

We see all about us, in various stages of disrup- 
tion, men and women struggling to overcome the 
destructive tendencies thus outlined, realizing sub- 
consciously their danger, and endeavoring to neutral- 
ize it. When they succeed, it is due generally to 
their character-background. This sense of danger is 
one of the most powerful influences to keep people 
straight, to give them good manners, to make them go 
to church, indeed, to occupy themselves in every way 
with the general betterment of social conditions, civic 
and political. 


DEFENSIVE 


This influence, it will be seen upon reflection, is not 
a spontaneous aspiration for better things. It is due 
to secret fear (already referred to in the chapter on 
the dream god) or a vague sense of danger. In short, 
everybody feels instinctively what I am trying to bring 
out in this book, namely, that materialism of any kind 
is destructive, carried to its logical end. They there- 


178 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


fore fortify themselves by altruism, trying to steer a 
middle course between too much indulgence on the 
one hand and too much ascetism on the other, and in 
other ways. 

The idle rich thus take special care of their bodies, 
and, by almost incredible skill in arranging their 
pleasures, contrive to skim along on the surface of 
things until indifference to spiritual consequences be- 
comes a kind of crust. Be not deceived. Their way 
is death. 

Occasionally, when they come to the end of their 
rope, the real difficulty presents itself. Then the lack 
of spiritual development drives them either into a 
slow or fast form of self-destruction. There is no 
escape, for there never can be any compromise. Man 
cannot serve God and Mammon. It appears to work 
for a time, but in the end gets you. 


A CASE 


One of the friends I have mentioned was a bachelor. 
He had a position as one of the leading officers in a 
large corporation, with a salary of $25,000 a year. 
He was popular and was elected president of, at that 
time, the largest athletic club in America. I was 
his guest once at this club, and was amazed at the 
apparently wonderful life he led. He was temperate, 


THE ROAD TO DESTRUCTION 179 


hard working, living a life of morality, exercising 
judiciously, and enjoying the society of his friends. 
He left an estate of $100,000. He shot himself. 
Why? 

Because he had no internal spiritual resources. 

Undoubtedly, there was a malady present in him, 
but he could have been healed of this tendency had he 
developed a faith in a Creator. He had no real 
occupation. 

Those who have developed a spiritual life, even in 
small part, will fully understand what this means. 
They are never alone, never without a superior sense 
of consolation, of Oneness with God. That is worth 
all the money in the world. 


WHEN THE DAM BREAKS 


In the case of those who destroy themselves, there 
comes the culmination of a spiritual lack in a sudden 
and overwhelming despair. Materially it is ex- 
pressed in the thought that they are no longer of any 
use. As soon as a man fully believes this, he de- 
-stroys himself by a kind of automatic process. In 
many cases the victims have been discovered dead 
with numerous cigarette ends in front of them, show- 
ing the abnormal consumption of these “‘coffin-nails,” 
as they have been sometimes referred to by the smok- 


180 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


ers themselves. The presumption is that during 
their despair they sought extreme consolation in ex- 
cess of cigarette smoking, this only increasing the 
poison and driving them more swiftly onward. The 
fact is, however, that in these cases the cigarettes were 
not the cause, but only the manifestation, of a more 
serious spiritual ailment. 


WE CANNOT STOP THINKING 


No human being can stop thought from flowing 
through his mind. This energy thus accumulating 
must have an outlet. If the stream of thought is de- 
flected into wrong channels, the result is destruction. 
On its purely physiological and psychological side, 
the psycho-analysts have shown the manifestation of 
this material law. The introvert, or victim of re- 
pressions or complexes, resorts to brooding, a form 
of intensive fantasy, this leading to certain self- 
destruction. The moment an outlet is made, the 
poison is released and freedom comes. Suicide is 
always the culmination of a long process. One 
friend of mine shot himself under a tree to which he 
had wandered. Before this happened, a group of 
people who knew him tried in every way possible to 
break the spell surrounding him. Apparently this 
was impossible. As one close to him said afterward, 


THE ROAD TO DESTRUCTION 181 


“He tried to think his way out.” No more deeply 
ironic comment on the futility of the intellect alone 
could have been made than this. 


THE TOBOGGAN 


Among men, the common cause of suicide begins 
with the distressing thought that they are slipping, 
usually in fortune or heaith, or both. Up to that 
moment they have drifted along in the man dream— 
sleek, prosperous, and physically comfortable. 

It is in the pathetic bewilderment of this moment, 
suddenly feeling the ground beginning to give un- 
der them, that they reach forward to grasp nothing 
but thin air. No one can save them but themselves, 
and this chance has been lost. If, back in their lives 
somewhere, they had paused only for a day to put 
in some hard thinking of the right kind, calmly dis- 
passionate and free from fear, spiritually directed to 
the source of life, this might easily have made all 
the difference between life and death. 


THE CONSENSUS OF OPINION 


Even if we accord to the advocates of a spiritual 
life only one half of the evidence, we shall find that 
the majority among our greatest thinkers in the world, 


182 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


Christian and agnostic, mystic and philosopher, are 
agreed that no dependence can be placed on material 
things. If a conscientious list of all those men in all 
branches of activity were made, the result would re- 
veal overwhelmingly the fact that a large proportion 
of them either lived in poverty or, if they possessed 
wealth, paid small attention to it. Among these, I 
mention Lao Tse, Socrates, Christ, St. Augustine, St. 
Francis; and in more modern times, Fabre the great 
French naturalist, Rodin the great French sculptor, 
Benjamin Franklin, Emerson, Thoreau, Washington, 
Lincoln; and more recently, Charles Steinmetz and 
Franklin Lane. If likewise we classify the intellect 
as material and merely the intricate development of 
sense impressions, we may also say with truth that a 
large proportion of the greatest things have been 
achieved by the ignorant. Napoleon, the most vivid 
figure in French history, was not a Frenchman and 
never really knew the French language. Keats, who 
has perhaps interpreted the Greek spirit better than 
any one else, was a poor Greek scholar. Joan of 
Arc had no military training. Walter Scott confessed 
that he was no grammarian. Of Balzac, George 
Moore has said that he knew from the beginning how 
life was made, and did not need to observe it. Cer- 
tainly, the creator of the Comédie Humaine, contain- 
ing over two thousand characters, had no time to ob- 


THE ROAD TO DESTRUCTION 183 


serve them in actual life; he created them. Jesus, 
while familiar with the Mosaic law, has left no record 
of writing, his sayings having been taken down by 
others. Neither money, on the one hand, nor formal 
material brain-training, on the other, can account for 
the greatest achievements of humanity. This list 
could be almost indefinitely extended, to include in 
one’s own community those who have the most influ- 
ence; and it will be invariably discovered that there 
is something spiritual in them which cannot be formu- 


lated. 


FAMILIES 


For over thirty years I have observed the course of 
many families (including my own) who have been 
born into wealth or who have acquired it, and in 
each and every instance the potent poison of money- 
excess has been the outstanding influence for destruc- 
tion. Or perhaps I can put it more clearly by say- 
ing that excess of money has been the channel through 
which weakness has been manifested. Opposed to 
this, we must not underestimate the force of native 
character and common sense, which in so many cases 
turns the scales in favor of genuinely useful careers. 
Thus we have among our most wealthy and sub- 
stantial people a large number of families who not 


184 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


only overcome the destructive possibilties of wealth, 
but are able to control and direct their possessions 
into useful channels. It frequently happens that 
when things seem the worst with an individual, he is 
merely working through a period of recklessness, 
perhaps out of curiosity, and that, underneath it, his 
character is forming. In this respect our judg- 
ments must always be tempered with patience and 
tolerance. Money must be mixed with character and 
right intention to make it serve, but even at its best 
it is the least among the servants of man. What 
count most are ideas, and the garret, the desert, and 
the laboratory have furnished more of these than the 
directors’ room, the picture palace, or the editorial 
sanctum. 


COMMON SENSE ONCE MORE TO THE FRONT 


It will be seen from what I have written that the 
much extolled life of self-sacrifice and unselfishness, 
which has been set apart as such an important func- 
tion of the Christian life, is based on solid princi- 
ples of conduct, and, simply as a method of practical 
wisdom, is a necessity. Moreover, it is not specially 
confined to so-called Christians, but is always the con- 
comitant of good judgment applied to one’s life. Re- 
garded in this way, it is a defensive measure. Thus, 


THE ROAD TO DESTRUCTION 185 


if you would keep yourself normal and healthy, even 
as a materialist, occupy yourself with affairs; give, 
and you will receive; maintain your usefulness, thus 
overcoming a sense of failure, which is always stand- 
ing at your side ready to knife you. So much for 
suicidal tendencies. 

We shall find this same general principle holding 
good in matrimony; and in a broad, general way, if 
we wonder at the increase in divorce and the symp- 
toms of so much unrest among married people, we 
may put it down to selfishness and luxury to a large 
extent. But there are other factors entering into 
married life to which I shall briefly refer. 


MATRIMONIAL DEBACLES 


The first typical case is that of a young couple 
who meet and marry in haste, without proper consid- 
eration, influenced largely by sex over-stimulus, and 
also by the lax standards which are the outcome of 
war. By this I mean the tendency to shift one’s own 
personal responsibility. In war, there is no sense 
of responsibility except at the top. Furthermore, 
everything else is condoned but the main purpose. 
Sexual crimes are condoned and sexual laxity slurred 
over, so long as it does not enter into the results to 
be achieved. Thus, personal recklessness is carried 


186 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


over after the war is won or lost, and persists in a 
series of waves, the recovery being slow. Now a 
young couple, weakened in their natural judgment by 
so much, will take a chance, without properly con- 
sidering the consequences. I should like to empha- 
size here the fact that I am by no means an advocate 
of poverty, which I regard as a disease by itself, and 
that I believe at all times in the most painstaking 
scrutiny of all money-matters. It is wicked not to 
be severely definite about one’s obligations. In the 
case I am describing, the husband soon finds himself 
overwhelmed by increasing expenses, of which he had 
small previous idea, although it is probable that some 
one has previously warned him. Shrinking from 
contact with so many burdens, he begins to seek 
temporary relief away from home. His wife, on her 
part, goes through a similar process. 

Thus friction develops, the result being that the 
husband quits or goes off with some other woman. 
This case might be multiplied many times. Fre- 
quently young men abandon their wives, leaving them 
with one or more children. 

The second case, also typical, is that of a man and 
wife who have lived together for many years and 
raised children. They fall apart because of appar- 
ently the same influences. 


THE ROAD TO DESTRUCTION 187 


THE REAL SOURCE OF THE TROUBLE 


But in both cases the cause is due to a deep spir- 
itual lack. And this lies at the heart of national 
life. 

There are men, seemingly of high intelligence, who 
are utterly incapable of understanding the spiritual 
life or believing in it. The continuous scoffing of 
these men, because they are able to express them- 
selves so cleverly, is one of the worst influences among 
us, as I have pointed out. 

These men are largely responsible for the laxity of 
morals, for the pathetic and unnecessary suffering so 
widespread, due to lack of restraint and spiritual 
insight. 


THERE MUST BE SOMETHING MORE 
SUBSTANTIAL THAN FLESH AND BLOOD 


Unless a man and his wife are held together by 
something higher than the ties of flesh and blood, 
their matrimonial house is built on sand. A proper 
matrimonial relationship is where the physical is, 
throughout life, slowly receding and is being replaced 
by spiritual understanding. There is nothing more 
glorious and wonderful than the spiritual union of a 
man and woman who have passed through the various 


188 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


physical stages up to this plane where they live to- 
gether in a union which has no boundaries, and to 
which physical death is but an incident. There is 
nothing more disheartening than the falling apart of 
two married people because neither has developed 
spiritual insight. 

One of the great obstacles to matrimonial harmony 
begins with minor fault-finding and criticisms, which 
gathering strength, end in savage discord—a condi- 
tion in which husband and wife are constantly at 
bay. 

The cure for this condition does not lie in the 
churches nor in any mortal institution, but in a wide- 
spread understanding of the great truths of life. And 
these can only be attained by a decision on the part 
of each individual to stop at nothing until he finds his 
Creator. 

A husband who begins by criticizing his wife (even 
if he does n’t voice the criticism, but only thinks it) 
for minor extravagances, gradually fastens upon her, 
within himself, a growing reputation for extrava- 
gance. She responds to this growing criticism in the 
only natural way,—by resenting it, thus setting up 
defiance, and either resorts to deception or to open 
rebellion. A sense of injustice grows between them, 
and thus a destructive influence is fostered in the very 
heart of the home. 


THE ROAD TO DESTRUCTION 189 


HUSBANDS DO NOT CONTROL WIVES 


Now in the first place, the husband has, actually, 
no power over his wife. This is proved in too many 
cases to the contrary. By taking the course indicated, 
he is doing all he can to make his wife worse. If, 
however, he had faith in a Creator, and understood 
that the spiritual law is absolute and can not be 
changed one iota by any individual, he would then, 
when confronted by a disturbing condition, begin to 
search himself minutely to discover the cause, in- 
stead of fastening the blame elsewhere. The first 
thing he would find is this: that while we do not in- 
fluence others by advice or criticism or any sort of 
nagging, we can influence them by first abandoning in 
ourselves all the tendencies which we have falsely 
fastened upon them. In other words, a husband who 
accuses his wife of extravagance will invariably dis- 
cover that the cause lies somewhere back in himself. 
When he cures himself, he cures his wife, or rather 
his wife is cured, for right at this point the perfect 
power of love is manifested. It is difficult to explain 
this any further or more particularly except that, in 
actual practice, it works. The rule is first always to 
think of others as perfect, and to remember that the 
faults we see in them are only reflections of our own 
imperfections. Second, to let them utterly alone to 


190 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


do as they please, leaving their conduct to God. 
Third, to correct oneself. The covenant between 
husband and wife is the most sacred contract in the 
world. Neither should yield ground to the other, so 
far as personal conduct is concerned; and likewise, 
neither should attempt to coerce or nag or use the 
other for selfish purposes. 

That is the trouble with our religion. It does not 
hold husbands and wives together. It has no prac- 
tical value in solving our personal problems. 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 


In this chapter the author takes up the life of the Mystic, 
and, first defining the likeness of religion to mysticism, 
shows that the life of the mystic is the only reality. 





RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 


In the preceding chapters, having traced the course 
of the life of the senses in some of its most offensive 
aspects (it is popularly known as the world, the flesh, 
and the devil), I shall now pass on to the religious 
life. 

What I particularly hope to make clear is this: that 
all the real work ever done in the world has been 
done by the spirit, and not by the mind or body; and 
if this truth were more universally understood, the 
human race would be made over. 

Too much stress has always been laid on so-called 
brain power, and not enough on character. Yet the 
most every-day experience shows us the truth. The 
most successful men in any walk are not the smartest, 
but the most reliable. 

Most of us learn very quickly that if we go out 
after money alone, we get nothing. In any office, the 
fellow who is constantly dissatisfied about his wages 
and asking for more is the one who falls behind in 
the race. 


Real religion is merely a man’s attitude toward 
193 


194 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


his Creator, expressed in his daily acts. We may 
say of him that he comes of a good family, that he has 
backbone, that he has inherited talent, or anything 
else that we like. When we come to examine him 
closely, we shall find that he succeeds or fails entirely 
according to what his unconscious attitude is toward 
God, or the source of his Being. We speak of a boy 
as being “a good boy.” That is it. He doesn’t 
know why, but that is it. 

So far as the religious temperament is concerned, 
that, I take it, is a thing by itself. It may or may not 
be a concomitant of true religion. It may be, and 
often is, the result of environment. Sometimes very 
young men are very religious; they have a call to 
preach. But the thing I am trying to define is much 
deeper than that. On every man’s part, it is a real 
concern about why he is here. It has absolutely 
nothing to do with terms. 

There are a great many varieties of religious 
temperament. In what follows I shall treat of 
mysticism. 

The evidence presented by some of the great mys- 
tics in their lives is regarded by most laymen as quite 
inconclusive. They simply do not understand what 
it means. They have not, in this sense, been con- 
verted. And this is true even of some of the most 
eminent clericals. 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 195 


ARE MYSTICS A CLASS APART? 


In “Western Mysticism,” by Dom Cuthbert Butler, 
Benedictine Monk, of Downside Abbey, the author of 
a very instructive book informs us in his preface that 
it was in preparation for twenty years; and in his 
epilogue, after having treated his subject from vir- 
tually all angles, he absolves himself from actual 
participation in mysticism. 

“The question is,” he declares, “from all this welter 
of unpromising stuff, do the experiences of the great 
mystics stand out with such distinction and such 
compelling force as to impose themselves by their 
quality, so that they constitute a class apart, able to 
carry the weight of their tremendous claim, and to 
assert its validity? 

“For myself, I believe that this is so. To prevent 
misconception, I say quite simply that I have never 
had any such experience myself, never anything that 
could be called an experimental perception of God or 
His Presence.” 

How, indeed, could his conclusion of the validity 
of the claim of the mystics be otherwise? Even if 
for no other reason than ecclesiastical courtesy, cer- 
tainly a priest of the Catholic Church could scarcely 
be expected to throw out of court the evidence of 
other priests. The fact is, however, that he is sup- 


196 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


ported by what may be considered a more practical 
(or shall we say pragmatical?) authority. He 
quotes William James (“Varieties of Religious Ex- 
perience”) with good effect: 


Mystical experiences are, and have a right to be, author- 
itative for those who have had them, and those who have 
had them not are not in a position to criticize or deny the 
validity of the experience; the mystic is invulnerable, and 
must be left in undisturbed possession of his creed. 


With regard to the question, which has so often 
been raised by psychologists, as to whether mystics 
can be said to be tinged with degeneracy, Father 
Butler declares that the “only valid criterion in judg- 
ing them is their content, . . . “By their fruits ye 
shall know them,’” and, to support his statement, 
once more calls on James: 


To pass a spiritual judgment upon these states, we must 
not content ourselves with superficial medical talk, but in- 
quire into their fruits for life. The great Spanish mystics, 
who carried the habit of ecstasy as far as it has often been 
carried, appear for the most part to have shown indomitable 
spirit and energy, and all the more so for the trances in 
which they indulged. 


It is very difficult, indeed, not to go on and quote 
from other authorities given by Father Butler, for 
the straightforwardness of his style and his simple 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 197 


human attitude throughout are so evident that what 
he writes in favor of mystics is all the more convinc- 
ing. Not that he is unfavorable to the belief that 
mysticism is something very real and very divine, 
only that he has the good sense not to be carried away 
by any suggestion of fanaticism. 


WHAT IS MYSTICISM ? 


It may be thought now not improper to ask, What 
is mysticism? “There is probably no more misused 
word. It has come to be applied to many things in 
many kinds; to theosophy and Christian Science; to 
spiritualism and clairvoyance; to demonology and 
witchcraft; to occultism and magic; to weird psychical 
experiences, if only they have some religious color; 
to revelations and visions,” etc. 

But in this case, what is meant by mysticism is re- 
vealed by a study of the utterances of three great 
Western mystics, Saints Augustine, Gregory, and 
Bernard. We may answer the question by stating 
that mysticism is search after God and the method of 
attaining an actual sense of his presence. In order 
to come face to face with God it appears to be ab- 
solutely necessary, according to the unanimous testi- 
mony of all mystics, to give up the world, to abandon 
all sensual pleasures; and this process is a long and 


198 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


painful one. “The intervening mist of sin is first 
washed away from the eye of the mind by burning 
sorrow; and then it is illumined by the bright 
coruscations of the unencompassed Light flashing 
upon it.” Indeed, there can be no spiritual or mys- 
tical progress without self-denial. That is the first 
step. After reading so much of the language of 
ecstasy, some of which the author even naively hints 
is beyond his own comprehension, one is at first in- 
clined to the opinion that the mystic is one in whom 
selfishness reaches its maximum. There is no sense 
of sorrow or sympathy expressed over the trials of 
others. Presumably there are no “others.” The 
mystic is alone; by a long system of asceticism he 
finally succeeds in parting the veil that separates him 
from God. Like Moses, he is accorded, in a swift 
vision, a blinding flash of reality. He then sinks 
back into his former state, only to wait in patience 
and humiliation for the coming of the Presence once 
again. 

“The soul,” says Augustine, “in contemplation will 
arrive at that most high and secret reward for sake 
of which it has so labored; and in which are such 
joys, such a full enjoyment of the highest and truest 
good, such a breath of serenity and eternity, as are 
indescribable.” 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 1 ae) 


IS IT SELFISHNESS? 


In utterances like these, which might be multiplied 
indefinitely, we discover nothing but the apotheosis of 
the self. And the whole matter appears to be se- 
verely practical. The pleasures of this world, be 
they of the flesh or of the intellect, are fleeting and 
utterly false. To get rid of them all is impossible; 
to push them sternly aside, and finally to emerge into 
the light of Reality—that is the object of all those who 
come at last to understand the follies of the senses. 
This understanding may come very early in life or it 
may be delayed. St. Augustine was not finally con- 
verted until he was thirty-two. Up to that time he had 
been the unceasing object of his mother’s prayers, and 
had run the gamut of the carnal and the falsely 
mental. Then came the change, and another great 
mystic was enrolled—as Father Butler declares, per- 
haps the greatest one of all, if we except St. Paul. 

And yet we should still be on the lower level of the 
most misleading criticism if we assume that mysticism 
is only a kind of supreme selfishness. The distinc- 
tion between living for one’s own soul and doing for 
others is amply disposed of by our author. And it is 
to St. Augustine that we must turn for the solution. 
Among all the great mystics, he alone, after Paul, 


200 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


seems to have been able to bridge the chasm between 
the active and the contemplative life. He was a good 
business man. He mingled with the world, yet was 
not of it. “His practical solution of the problem 

. is that, whatever be the superior attractions or 
the greater intrinsic worth of contemplation, it has 
to be interrupted at the calls of duty or charity.” 
The claims of the two lives are amply set forth. A 
striking illustration is given in the lives of Mary and 
Martha, as recorded in the New Testament. In the 
tenth chapter of Luke it is,written that Jesus entered 
into a certain village and a certain woman named 
Martha received Him at her house. Her sister Mary 
sat at His feet and heard His Word, but did little or 
nothing to help in the household work. Martha, 
“cumbered about much serving,” complained, where- 
upon— 


Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou 
are careful and troubled about many things. But one thing 
is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which 
shall not be taken away from her. 


It is upon this text that St. Augustine quite largely 
rests his case in favor of the contemplative life; the 
life of seclusion, of spiritual ecstasy: 


What Martha chose passes away. She ministered to the 
hungry, the thirsty, the homeless; but all these pass away; 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 201 


there will be (a time) when none will hunger and thirst. 
Therefore will her care be taken from her. . . . Martha’s 
part is holy and great; yet Mary hath chosen the better, 
in that while her sister was solicitous and working and 
caring for many things, she was at leisure and sat still and 


listened. Mary’s part will not be taken away from her, 
Martha’s will. 


THE INNER LIFE OF THE SPIRIT 


Dom Cuthbert Butler’s book, written with such sim- 
plicity and sincerity, illuminates in striking fashion, 
the great problem which has, since the termination of 
the European war, agitated so many scientific and 
religious minds. This problem focuses on the ques- 
tion which I have dealt with in the chapter on 
Terms and Symbols, namely; What is the difference 
between the outer and inner life? What is real and 
what is unreal? The mystic turns from the world of 
unreality—the material dream state—and becomes a 
permanent resident of the world of reality. The con- 
trast between the two states is now sharply defined. 
In each individual case we may use our own set of 
terms to explain our individual meaning. We may 
call these two states the Unconscious or the Conscious, 
the Fleeting or the Permanent, the Spirit or the Flesh, 
Darkness or Light, God or Satan, Reality or Unreal- 
ity, but it all means the same. In the clever novel 


202 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 
by H. G. Wells, “Men Like Gods,” the principal 


character, starting out on a vacation motor-trip, meets 
with an accident, and is suddenly precipitated into 
another world—a world of another dimension, 
parallel with the one that we are now in. The change 
is instantaneous and complete. This is only Mr. 
Wells’s manner of dramatizing this idea. In the 
pleasing form of fiction he has shown that this whole 
world may be, for aught we know, one of utter illu- 
sion, “a dream and a forgetting.” 

And this is the claim not only of the mystics, but 
of many others who have come to believe that 
the senses are poor agents for stability. No doubt 
the shock of Ejinstein’s announcement of the law of 
relativity, as dimly perceived as it may be by laymen, 
has added to the sense of unreality in our present 
world. When we are told by grave scientific 
seigniors that all matter is nothing but electrons,' 
which in themselves are eternally invisible; by relativ- 
ists that the law of gravitation no longer holds good; 
by Freudians that all the impulses that move us most 
we are unconscious of; and by worthy gentlemen 

1JIn considering the possibility of comprehending the gravita- 
tional field and the electromagnetic field together, Dr. Albert Ein- 
stein in “Sidelights on Relativity” (Dutton) has this to say: “The 
contrast between ether and matter would fade away, and, through 
the general theory of relativity, the whole of physics would become 


a complete system of thought.” Thus the whole material universe 
is swept-:away by the chief protagonist of relativity. 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 203 
like Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Conan Doyle that the 


fairies we knew in childhood are real and that the 
friends who have passed over are still acting very 
much as we are acting, may we be pardoned if we 
pinch ourselves and begin to wonder if our personal 
experience is, after all, more valid for us than the 
theories of so many authorities? But even a slight 
knowledge of the claims of the spirit as revealed in 
the lines of the great mystics places the problem of 
life fairly and squarely before us. 


WHAT MYSTICISM IS 


Practically, mysticism is an abandonment of the 
world, a gradual subjection of the claims of the 
senses, and a corresponding development of the spir- 
itual consciousness. Its realm lies beyond the claims 
of the intellect, and therefore it has no material 
validity. God cannot be proved by a syllogism; for 
that is only a representation of the dream state, of 
the universal illusion of matter, just as the goldfish 
thinks he is all sufficient unto himself, and knows 
nothing beyond his globe. 

In actual practice, a human being has only two bets: 
God, or Mammon. Mammon stands for every- 
thing, that is, for the world of the senses, everything 
comprehended by the senses. God stands for every- 


204 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


thing not comprehended by the senses. A human be- 
ing puts his stake on Mammon until Mammon goes 
back on him. Then, in desperation, he searches 
for God. The journey is painful, the search long 
and doubtful. He may be often fooled. Quacks 
abound. A list of all the cults, healers, nostrums, 
and man-made religions in the world would fill a city 
directory. No wonder our young people, bubbling 
over with youth and health and natural wholesome- 
ness, scorn anything which savors of the so-called 
other world, especially when they see its hypocriti- 
cal representatives fighting to the death among 
themselves. 


THE THREE IN ONE 


There are three conditions of consciousness: 

1. The dream state of material illusion, without 
education. | 

2. The same state, with education. 

3. The spiritual state (or plane, as it is sometimes 
termed ). 

It is necessary to pass through the first two states 
to reach the third. Those in the third still remain 
partly in the first or second or both. But even when 
they are submerged temporarily in either the first or 
second, they know it. They come back. 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 205 


Those in the first two states know nothing of the 
third. They may scoff at it, while actually the spirit 
is working in them, and spiritual consciousness may” 
come suddenly, breaking the dream state. On the 
road to Damascus St. Paul passed from one state to 
the other. 

In the second state are many of the “world’s” 
greatest intellects—philosophers, scientists, states- 
men, theologians, etc. Many of these brilliant men 
show enormous confidence and conceit in their own 
opinions, coupled with scorn of all others not on 
their intellectual plane. This is the price, in spirit- 
ual ignorance, that intellect pays for admittance to 
its own select circle. 

To those who have gone on beyond to the spiritual 
plane, such brilliant material intellects must ever be 
appealing figures. It would seem as if the very de- 
velopment of their intellects (illusion) has made them 
the victims of an increasing spiritual blindness. We 
cannot, however, always tell. Augustine’s life, like 
that of Paul’s, is an example of sudden turning to 
light. Also, it must be noted that there can be no 
patronage on the part of those in the third stage over 
the other two. On the contrary, I should say that 
most mystics are too much absorbed in their own im- 
perfections, or rather the sense of their materiality, 
to pass critical judgment on those whom they must 


206 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


come to regard as fleeting images of a dream state, 
out of which they themselves have only partly 
emerged. Then, again, we must recall constantly the 
spiritual fact that we are handicapped by our form of 
expression and that the whole problem is essentially 
impersonal. In short, we cannot consider other hu- 
man beings as isolated units. 

Many men at the head of great industrial en- 
terprises, or carrying out great constructive work, 
who appear to be wholly immersed in materialism 
and would scorn any suggestion of spiritual power, 
are actually following Christ in the best sense. They 
carry their spiritual ideals concealed. They are like 
big boys, ashamed to show their real feelings. 


JUDGE NOT 


So that we cannot dismiss the world offhand, nor 
condemn it upon the appearance of things. When 
Gabriel blows his trumpet, there will be a great deal 
of unseemly scufiling and shifting about. Many of 
those who have been shouting the Gospel the loudest 
will have their gas turned off so suddenly they won’t 
even know what has happened to them. Others, now 
rated as hard-boiled eggs, apparent scoffers, will be 
dragged—even then against their inclinations—into 
the celestial lime-light. And it will not be at all like 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 207 


our lime-light. It will be the spiritual sun of love 
that sends its rays through the whole spiritual 
universe. 


BE NOT HASTY 


On the spiritual plane, the understanding that not 
only can the senses be transcended, but that all sense 
material is an illusion, comes slowly. The proof 
lies entirely in the experience. There is no means 
of proving this state to those on the material plane. 
It is much better to remain silent, or else to relate 
one’s experience only to those who ask for it. It is 
believed or not, according to the stage in which the 
listener happens to be. 

So far as any controversy is concerned, especially 
about the Bible, that is merely a material thing, an 
illusion, which we accept or reject in the Bible, de- 
pending upon whether it is true for us, as individuals. 
While those who develop a spiritual consciousness 
come inevitably to realize this truth, it has remained 
for the higher mathematicians to confirm it, as al- 
ready hinted. Einstein’s so-called law of Relativity, 
stripped of its technical verbiage, is nothing but a 
demonstration of this truth. All things must be 
relative to the individual consciousness, to which all 
things must be referred. What else is there? 


208 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


You, who read these lines, either understandingly 
or with such scorn as you may care to expend upon 
them, know one thing absolutely—that it is always up 
to you to decide between two things. Shall you cross 
the street or not? Who else can determine this for 
you? Spiritually speaking, your action in either case 
is an illusion. It does not matter whether you cross 
the street or not. You cannot change the universe by 
any act or thought. If you are wise you will pass 
your conscious moments in seeking to adjust yourself 
to it. What you do, in any given instance, does not 
depend, as the psychologists would have us believe, 
upon a whole background of racial impulses, stored 
away in what is termed your unconscious. What 
you do is determined by God, or if you like, Real- 
ity. 

You are under orders. You admit no sense of 
responsibility. And this is strange to the novice, who 
thinks that he originates his own sin and is therefore 
guilty, On this point, let me for a moment quote 
from a very great book, by a very great writer on 
religion, Baron Friedrich Von Hiigel. He writes, in 
the preface to “The Mystical Element of Religion as 
Studied in St. Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends” 
that he has been somewhat bantered, although gently 
so, by a French Jesuit, “for more or less assuming that 
the mystical sense, or anything at all really like it, 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 209 


was, if not universal, at least common amongst 
mankind.” He then refers to Dr. Alfred Caldecott, 
Emeritus Professor and former Dean of King’s 
College, London, who, in a “charming” paper “asked 
leave to reverence the great mystics from afar, but to 
be actually helped and expanded by such gleams of 
intermittent mysticism as shine out from Carlyle and 
John Stuart Mill, from Charles Lamb and Oliver 
Wendell Holmes—gleams which are evidently ap- 
prehended by Dr. Caldecott as themselves, in turn, 
simply specimens of what is to be found, more or 
less, in human life at large.” Von Hiigel then adds, 
and this is the point of my referring to him, that: 
“Nothing could well be more true and important than 
Dr. Caldecott’s protest against straining to find our 
help beyond, where we succeed in finding help at all: 
I should have liked now to add a section in which I 
would have specially utilized Walter Bagehot’s won- 
derful paper upon William Cowper (written out of 
the fulness of a most touching close personal knowl- 
edge) upon the danger, increasingly great in our 
more and more overwrought, nervously weak and 
psychically unstable times, of all straining and all 
strainedness.” 

In short, the gradual transfer from the material 
dream state to the spiritual state, after the first 
awakening, should not be one of anxiety but of a 


210 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


growing sense of true freedom, one of confidence and 
rejoicing. And this has been my own experience. 


THE INDIVIDUAL IS SUPREME 


In a sketchy treatment such as this I can quote no 
further. And I must not here miss emphasizing my 
point, namely, that the individual is supreme in his 
journey, that he is always the center of things. But 
in passing, I simply wish to show that it is upon faith 
that the true mystic leans; that his main decision, 
constantly being repeated, is to give himself up 
wholly to God, that this is a spiritual intention and 
that, through all his trial, there is no strain of the sort 
which comes to those tangled up in material illusions. 
His serenity is unbroken, though he be crucified 
daily. 

What the relativists refer to as the “Event” is 
merely the guide-post which recurs in the succession 
of conscious states. There can be no actual time, 
because the individual consciousness is fixed. All 
material phenomena move about it, having no valid- 


1JIn other words, the only possible terms for the statement of a 
law of Nature are events. ... The new point of view is of special 
interest because it suggests the possibility of a more complete 
unification of Nature than any previously imagined. With one hand 
relativity destroys the throne of matter and motion: with the other 
it erects an altar to the event. 

From “Relativity for All” by Herbert Dingle (Little, Brown). 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 211 


ity in themselves, either in time or space. If, for 
example, I seem to go to Chicago, Chicago is merely 
the “event”? in my consciousness—an appearance. 
I have not moved. I cannot move. 

It is this ultimate sense of fixity that gives the 
mystic his serenity. Says Drummond: “The well 
defined spiritual life is not only the highest life, but 
it is also the most easily lived.” The proof of all 
this lies in the fact that there never can be Re- 
ality where there is change. Reality, or God, is 
unalterable, the same yesterday, to-day, and for- 
ever. 


SO MUCH DO WE OVERLOOK 


The blight of spiritual blindness is an accusation 
which any one of us may bring against the majority 
of people in the world without fear of contradiction. 
We must also include our mortal selves in this indict- 
ment, for even the best of us are not so far advanced 
along the path of spiritual progress that we can afford 
to lord it over any one else. Indeed, we know little 
of what we are and of what others are or their pos- 
sibilities. 

But if the demands of truth and duty compel us to 
be so sternly accurate about our transcendental 
claims, what depths of humility we must sink to 
when we consider our blindness with regard to the 


212 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


commonest facts in our daily lives which we see con- 
stantly manifested about us! The sun rises and sets 
with such obedient regularity that we never notice it. 
Most of the stars twinkle so modestly and so faintly 
that we pay small attention to them. Indeed, with 
the help of Mr. Edison and others, we have succeeded 
in blotting them out of our nights, thus revealing our 
superiority over the duly restrained efforts of the 
heavens to attract our attention. The moon alone 
appears to have any advertising ability; its nearness 
to the earth and some of our self-advertisers may 
have consecrated it to this purpose. It does its 
best to call attention to its incomparable setting by 
changing its size constantly. The man in the moon, 
indeed, is the only publicity man the heavens can 
boast of. But even at that, he is heeded only by 
foolish folk who have fallen in love with each other 
for no apparent reason under the sun, except to per- 
petuate a doubtful planetary experiment, in which 
war, crime, and greed are the most conspicuous 
features. These foolish folk are quite unconsciously 
true spiritual vagabonds. 


AND AGAIN! 


And if we thus fail to take account of the sublime 
laws of the universe, how much more do we fail when 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 213 


we overlook the relationship between ourselves and 
the marvelous material creations about us. Consider 
the automobile, the telephone, the radio, the flying- 
machine. Consider the system of a great modern 
business: of a bank, a railroad station, a hotel, a de- 
partment store. If these mechanical marvels, each 
one a concrete manifestation of universal law, are all 
operated through the fluid medium of the human 
mind, is n’t it reasonable to suppose that there must 
be somewhere a science of living, of personal conduct 
which, if we could apply it to ourselves, would re- 
establish the world? In daily practice, we see that 
good manners are much more important than ability. 
We seem to succeed in everything else but this. But 
where man’s personal conduct gets mixed up with 
the machinery he invents, the result is disaster. 
This is why from the beginning of time, government 
has been such a colossal failure. And it is through 
this lack of conduct that wars are bred. 


CONDUCT 


Such a proposed science of living must concentrate 
itself entirely on personal conduct.* It seems equally 


1Jt is recognized that the mind has a far larger influence over the 
body than was at one time realized... .It is recognized further 
that mental conditions, and in particular religious emotions, are 
an important feature in the control of health. As a result of all 
these new points of view the attitude of some of those who are 


214 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


plain that one’s personal conduct is determined by the 
mind. If this is true, then—just as we create and 
plan any material business enterprise to a success- 
ful result—we must take our minds in hand, so to 
speak, and find out what is the best method of making 
them produce, or seem to produce, the best results. 
These results are not material. They are spiritual. 
They are not concerned with bodily comfort, but with 
spiritual tranquillity. The material result follows as 
a finality. 

But it is precisely at this point that our difficulty 
begins. Nobody else can do the thing for us. It is 
our own job. We are then doing just what the bi- 
ologist does—pushing back our investigation as far 
as we can in order to discover the origin. All roads 
thus lead to God. Face to face with the seeming un- 
known, we might easily throw up our hands and quit. 
Many do. If they are fairly comfortable in their 
places, with good health and good support, this quest 
is little more than an idle intellectual game, to be pur- 
sued only until it becomes tiresome. Why bother? 
That is what ails America. 
called critics towards the Gospel miracles has changed. They no 


longer maintain that the events did not happen, but they say they 
are not miracles. 


From “The Life and Teaching of Jesus The Christ” by the Rev. 
Arthur C. Headlam, C.H., D.D. (Oxford). 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 215 


WE HAVE TOO MUCH 


God supplies us with means of support, with great 
free works of art in superb galleries, with sublime 
poetry, with absorbing dramas, with healthful sports, 
with a moving panorama of sun, moon, and stars, with 
nature in all its magnificence of color and form, all 
inconceivably beautiful: with magic transportation, 
laughter, and, above all, with the companionship of 
loved ones, and children. And what do we do? We 
actually attach ourselves to the thought of all these 
things, apparently for the main purpose of forgetting 
God, who gives them to us. 

But it is at this point that the two great guides 
to Reality step in. One of them is Father Time and 
the other is Sorrow. Father Time, himself an illu- 
sion if we did but know it (for we are immortal), 
reminds us that our days on earth are fleeting. His 
intention is not only kindly, but right. He points out 
what all along ought to have been quite obvious, that 
our mortal bodies are frail barks in which to swim 
permanently upon the great ocean of eternity, and 
politely reminds us that we must either resign our- 
selves to obscurity, or else resolve ourselves into a 
committee of the whole to see whether there may be 
something permanent in our souls after all. Our 


216 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


golf game grows steadily worse. The obituary 
column is a daily nightmare. The “Pay as you 
Enter” sign that we see on trolleys floats in the air 
and finally lights down on the entrance to the cem- 
etery, where—with commendable caution—we have 
bought a lot. Things thicken up a bit all along the 
line. So much for the office of good old Father Time. 


SORROW THE TRUE GUIDE 


And the other guide—who may come at any time— 
is Sorrow. Of all the great occupations in the uni- 
verse, there is none so complete, so sublime, so perfect 
as sorrow. Sorrow is a consuming fire, separating 
the dross from the gold. Sorrow—or suffering, if 
you like—satisfies the demand of the soul in ways un- 
known through any other agency. It takes away all 
restlessness, all hatred, all covetousness and envy, and 
levels one to the common dust of humanity. It makes 
one a brother to all other sufferers, linked to them 
all with the indissoluble bonds of a common and 
complete understanding, as nothing else can ever do. 
Sorrow opens the way to God: it is the pathway to 
Peace, leading from the sense level to the spiritual 
heights. And until we experience it we are blind 
leaders of the blind. Welcome sorrow, welcome 
humiliation, welcome the call of obedience, for it is 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 217 


through these gateways alone that the absolute is re- 
vealed. We then perceive, as through a glass 
darkly, the slow consciousness of the spiritual 
heaven in which we are set. Who shall deny us this 
vision, we who have suffered with the true joy of 
suffering, not as martyrs, not exciting sympathy, but 
with the gladness and knowledge born of communion 
with the eternal? 


The mystery revealed in a unique degree and form in 
Christ’s life, is really a universal spiritual human law; the 
law of suffering and sacrifice, as the one way to joy and 
possession which has existed, though veiled till now, since 
the foundations of the world. 

VON HUGEL. 


TRUE JOY 


And it is this thought of joy that I should like to 
emphasize at this point in our pathway. Most, if not 
all, of the great ascetics have visualized the agony 
of the cross as a permanent thing. The material, 
physical suffering of Christ has cast over them a spell. 
If, however, we come finally to understand that matter 
and physical suffering are nothing—or shall I say a 
fleeting phenomenon?—then we can see that a true 
follower of Christ is a joyful messenger. We may 
well ask ourselves Does God suffer? If Christ is 
real now, is this reality rendered morbid for us by 


218 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


the illusion of his physical agony? We must suffer 
to follow Him, until we come to the understanding 
of Him. But as we achieve this, true joy comes. 
“There are two ways,’ writes Headlam, “two paths 
for man. The one is the way of the world, the other 
is the way of life. The one means making worldly 
success the motive of your life, whatever form it may 
take for you, and pursuing after that with anxious 
care. It seems attractive but it means ultimate 
failure. The other means caring for the things of 
God and His righteousness. It is the latter which 
brings man his highest good. The worldly man and 
the righteous man may pursue the same calling. 
Both alike may be statesmen, or merchants, or sol- 


diers: it is their motive and their method which will 
be different.” 


WHEN WAR WILL CEASE 


War will stop when all men regulate their personal 
conduct on the spiritual plane. Is this an impossible 
dream? Certainly not. The material upheavals 
going on all over the world, as the outcome of the 
war, are as nothing against the steady advance of 
those spiritual forces which will in time banish evil, 
revealing it in its nothingness. 

Each one of us is the sacred guardian of his 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 219 


thoughts. Each one of us who harbors daily and 
hourly good thoughts instead of bad thoughts, loving 
thoughts instead of thoughts of hatred, thoughts of 
humility, of obedience, of serenity and praise— 
each one of us is by so much helping the great cause 


of God in the world. 


THE CONTROVERSIALISTS 


If for a moment, we take a brief survey of human- 
ity, as it appears to a spectator, especially if we con- 
fine our vision to that select company who are os- 
tensibly trying to make the so-called world better, we 
shall discover a strange medley. The fundamental- 
ist takes his stand on the literal interpretation of the 
Bible, believes in the material virgin birth; while the 
modernist modestly declares that Jesus stands for a 
pragmatical idea which is quite all right, and the 
practical—or material—source of which need not be 
gone into. That is, the modernist dismisses the vir- 
gin birth with a lofty, but graceful, gesture. The 
psycho-analyst regards the whole controversy as a 
kind of strata of group complexes, one rising above 
the other, with the unconscious, or subjective mind, 
as it is sometimes called, a storehouse of these com- 
plexes, any one of which is likely to break loose at 
any moment. The medical men treat the problem 


220 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


entirely as if each organ of the body was a kind 
of separate entity. Thus they have developed 
specialists for each organ; and inasmuch as ap- 
parently all the so-called organs have not yet been 
explored, the number of specialists is constantly in- 
creasing. 

The doctors are very much like a lot of men who 
treat a forest for fires constantly breaking out by put- 
ting out each fire as it comes up, as if it were origi- 
nated by itself, but never going back to the source of 
all the fires. Thus by research, they develop methods 
of allaying certain forms of disease, only to have 
other forms of disease created, so that they can also 
be “cured” by ever recurring new methods of re- 
search. Thus diseases, like rabbits, multiply un- 
ceasingly. The chain stores have nothing on the 
doctors, who are constantly engaged in discovering 
new remedies for those who, having been cured, are 
as constantly dying off. Along with all this, the 
doctors really know that the greatest power they have 
is to allay fear and restore confidence. Thus, with 
their pharmacopeia, the practising doctors cultivate 
a bedside manner and acquire a sound technique of 
practical understanding. In medicine, religion may 
easily be disposed of by glands, the amount of secre- 
tions determining the religious convictions. 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 221 


THE GREAT STRADDLER 


The biologist straddles heredity on the one side 
and environment on the other, makes new calcula- 
tions almost daily on the cellular foundation of ova, 
and hopes that the next discovery will determine the 
origin of life. The literary critic patronizes God, 
either by recommending the reading of the Bible as 
a spiritual piéce de résistance, or else denouncing it as 
obscene. ‘The satirist writes plays which delight mul- 
titudes by holding up to veiled ridicule all the things 
which outwardly they hold sacred, their sense of 
proportion being so obscure they never even perceive 
they are laughing at themselves. Newspaper pro- 
prietors synchronize belt-lines of papers, and manage 
to publish the best and the worst of all that is written. 

Thus man’s boasted intellect, working for thou- 
sands of years, has produced nothing that makes him 
any happier, if as happy, as when he roamed the 
forests. If viewed rightly, it would be an intermin- 
able laughing-stock, and, if it were capable of self- 
immolation, would hide itself with shame as its own 
utter incompetence. A distinguished publicist de- 
clares that education is weakening the race because 
it decreases the birth-rate. His opponent declares, 
with equal passion, that all the uneducated are a 


222 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


herd of morons. We are thus left to take our choice. 

We are always left to take our choice. 

As the result of scientific achievements, millions 
of men to-day are fixed, like flies in amber, in a 
chaotic network of machinery, which would turn old 
Moloch green with envy at his infinitesimal efforts to 
devour the human race. These toiling millions, in 
the midst of this amazing network of machinery and 
labor-saving devices, shouted at by fanatics, written at 
by psychologists, fed by cafeterias, clothed by syndi- 
cates, doped by comic supplements and movies, and 
uplifted by amateur Messiahs in petticoats—they are 
to a man so restless and unhappy that, in their spare 
hours, they have nothing to do but to gamble away 
their time in pleasures so horrible that it would be 
indecent and cruel to recite them. And the heads of 
these enormous industries have told me personally 
that the only way to keep them from destroying them- 
selves further, or more speedily, is to keep them work- 
ing as hard and as long as possible! And in war, 
these millions are killed off, for the personal greed 
of a few world ring-masters who hold the whip-hand. 
Thus our present system of civilization, created out 
of chaos, and producing only chaos as the degenerate 
offspring of blustering intellect, will return to chaos. 
And all because we are afraid to face God, the only 
Reality. 


RELIGION AND MYSTICISM 223 


REAL RELIGION IMPERSONAL 


Real religion, founded upon the absolute surrender 
of the soul, without any reservation whatsoever, is 
impersonal. It is devoid of sentimentality. There 
is nothing soft about it. It has nothing at all to do 
with this world. ‘To get it, we must rid ourselves of 
material attachments, whatever they are, at home or 
abroad. Does this seem hard? Quite. But there 
is no other way. People are destroying themselves 
constantly who think there is another way. The 
majority of human beings combine mentally against 
any one who wants to live beyond the time they have 
set for themselves. 

The answer to all this lies in conduct, and conduct 
is more than three fourths of life. It is everything. 
Just as doctors are fooled by thinking they can ignore 
the source of a disease and treat only the cellular ap- 
pearance,—when God thinks otherwise,—so we place 
our physical actions first, and match our puny powers 
against the material world. We forget that our sal- 
vation depends entirely upon an internal decision, and 
that, once having made this, all the power of the uni- 
verse carries us on. All the physical effects follow 
inevitably. There is no strain. We pay no pen- 
alties. We absorb our sense of sin in the spiritual 
liberty achieved through constantly reflecting our 


224 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


creator. The reason why so many fail, even with 
this staring them in the face, is because they read 
God’s message backward. You cannot dothat. You 
must decide to become bankrupt, without any assets 
at all, before your spiritual check is honored by God. 
You cannot fool him. “I am that I AM.” 

Thus the way becomes ever clearer. Passivity is 
power. All things are created and maintained on the 
plane of the spiritual. 


CONVERSION 


In this chapter the author defines conversion, tells about 
his own, and shows that conversion is necessary to a right 
understanding of God. 


CONVERSION 


GETTING up in the morning is the hardest thing 
some of us do. I have known lives to be permanently 
disintegrated because the owner never had the cour- 
age to rise at the right time. 

This shrinking from doing the thing we ought to 
do is the basis of that slipping process which grows 
worse as it gets a harder hold. We are always get- 
ting out of doing things. 

Looking back over my own life, I think the hardest 
thing my wife and myself had to do while raising 
children was to get up in the night and heat the milk. 
She did the most of it, and I shirked whenever I could. 
The insistent cry and the befuddled mind are both 
accessories-before-dawn fact. 

Lying in bed mentally is a growing national trait. 
The multiplication of labor-saving devices, the grow- 
ing skill with which are presented to us our pleasures, 
our reading, our transportation—and all these in 
such manner that we have to do practically nothing 
ourselves—tend to make us soft. 

This tendency largely accounts for the decline in 


church attendance. Shrinking from the unpleasant is 
227 


228 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


the most popular indoor and outdoor sport of the 
American people. 

Our religious literature reflects this in a marked 
degree, The advertising slogan of a candy manu- 
facturer, “Happiness in Every Box’ might be applied 
to nine tenths of our religious books. 

It is almost necessary to apologize to my readers 
for telling them that they must get up early in the 
morning if they want to get the work done. Our 
general process of evasion is two fold: 

(1) We put off or (2) we get somebody else to 
do it. 


BUT IT DOES 


Now, ignorant and cynical intellectuals may deride 
me for saying that the only remedy for this wide- 
spread character disintegration lies in conversion, but 
those who have arrived at a dead end, those who have 
tried all the patent remedies, those who, shivering with 
fear, will bear me through to the conclusion, if they 
have read thus far and filled in between my lines with 
honest meditation, must come to realize that there is 
no alternative. We zigzag from duty to dereliction, 
but in the long run we choose permanently one side or 
the other. 

The thing we call death, being a fixed thing com- 


CONVERSION 229 


mon to all and consequently inevitable, we dismiss 
with commendable stoicism. If that were all, we 
could afford, with the hard-boiled egg, to roll along on 
the polished surfaces of material life, taking our 
chances of a smash-up. 


THE PERMANENT AND THE FLEETING 


But there is a thing called life, which we cannot 
ignore, and which concerns us most; and we know that 
life has two elements, namely, the fleeting and the 
permanent. We look about us and see that there are 
a small proportion of the world’s greatest men who 
have a permanent value, who are just as much alive 
to-day, if not more so, as they ever were. What 
would America mean to many of us if it were not for 
the living presence of our Great? Washington, 
Franklin, Lincoln? We know also, that among many 
of those personal friends who have lived among us 
and who have left us in the body, how the permanent 
revealed in them persists, and although they have 
passed away, they still live as an important influence 
in our lives. 

In contrast with this, we see in our own lives that 
nearly all, if not all, these things which at the moment 
seem to us so ruinous fade rapidly and become as 
nothing. Our pleasures, our tragedies, our material 


230 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


desires and misgivings, our sudden joys and griefs, 
all vanish. Thus we come to see that the material, 
visible self does n’t count in the long run, but that 
the invisible, spiritual self is the only reality, and that 
if we wish to harmonize this invisible, spiritual self 
with the universe, as we feel it in our consciousness, 
we must, so to speak, look alive; we must face the 
issue. We must get up and heat the milk in the black 
night in order that our life of permanence may be 
carried on. The words of Christ, “If ye love me, 
keep my commandments,” ring insistently in our 
ears. 


A ONE WAY ROAD 


I am so thoroughly convinced that in no other pos- 
sible way except through conversion can humanity be 
saved (and by saved I beg the reader not to limit this 
word to the narrow and emotional meaning of a re- 
vival meeting, but to give it the broad application 
which covers the whole social structure), that I think 
it worth while to devote some space to this awakening, 
which is so commonly misunderstood. 

Conversion, as is well known, has been subjected 
to the close scrutiny and analysis of theologians, phi- 
losophers, historians, and psychologists. Perhaps 
William James in his “Varieties of Religious Experi- 


CONVERSION 231 


ence’ has covered the ground more thoroughly than 
others, but he wrote before the definite development 
of the theory of psycho-analysis. I have no desire, 
nor is it pertinent here, to retill the ground already 
ploughed up by so many able gentlemen. All I seek 
is to emphasize one fact, and that is that conversion, 
whatever its degree of intensity, is conviction. It 
is not at all a question of belief or even of faith (for 
faith may be slight), but of certainty. When a man 
is converted, he is convinced. The world falls away 
from him immediately, like a discarded robe. He is 
changed in the twinkling of an eye. You cannot ar- 
gue with a converted man. The most powerful rea- 
soning of the most profound thinker is as nothing to 
him. You may call him a fool, a dolt, a fanatic, a 
moron. He is impregnable. He knows. 


THEY ARE ALL ABOUT US 


It will be seen from this that there must be a great 
many more converted people about us than we think. 
They do not talk about it, because talk would be 
useless. 

Also, they may even conceal it. There is a very 
lucid admonition of Christ, an instruction not to cast 
one’s pearls before swine. 

Conversion, moreover, is not a miracle in the 


232 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


sense that it is supernatural. Everybody is being 
constantly converted to something. And yet the con- 
version I mean, while quite natural, is a spiritual 
phenomenon solely. It is often startling in its ap- 
pearance. I mean in its internal appearance. If it 
were common only to the lowest order of minds,— 
as in a negro camp-meeting—we should be inclined to 
discredit it, putting it down to the account of pathol- 
ogy. The fact is, however, that it has been mani- 
fested in the lives of the greatest men and women, 
and has been productive of the greatest practical as 
well as spiritual results. 

So far as my own experience goes and my close ob- 
servation has extended, I am quite positive that con- 
version is a universal principle, that it is going on 
everywhere all the time, but that it is only seen as a 
dramatic effect acting upon an individual when his 
real personality and accumulated thoughts about God 
and himself suddenly reach a climax and overflow 
into a sudden revolution, or breaking-up of old mis- 


beliefs. 
WE ARE NOT MISERABLE SINNERS 
Conversion has been called a conviction of sin. 


It is very much more than that. It is an absolute 
certainty of one’s permanence. All through our 


CONVERSION 233 


lives, there are things which we hope are true and 
things we know are true, and we are constantly 
changing from one base to the other, according as the 
truth is unveiled. When we come, however, to ex- 
amine critically, that is, to subject to an absolute test, 
all the things we know are true in the material world, 
we shall be amazed to discover that, after all, our so- 
called knowledge is only a belief. 

For example, you know that the ten-dollar bill now 
in your pocket is good for ten dollars at the bank, and 
yet there is always the lurking possibility that it may 
be a counterfeit. It is true that the chances of its 
being a counterfeit are one in millions; nevertheless, 
you cannot set aside this faint possibility. So for a 
great many years, if not generations, the propositions 
of Euclid were declared to be true. Yet there has 
now arisen a small group of advanced mathematicians 
who declare they are no longer true. This doubt, 
even though it may be, upon your horizon, no bigger 
than a man’s hand, extends to your own conduct. 
You believe, almost to a certainty, just how you will 
act in a given crisis. But you cannot absolutely tell 
until the crisis has come. 

I once picked up a hot plate, of very slight value, 
from a stove and carried it to a table across the room, 
burning my fingers so badly that it took me days to 


234 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


recover. I lost in cash many times the value of the 
plate waiting for my fingers to heal. If, as soon as 
I touched the plate, I had been logical, I would have 
said, “It is better to drop this and let it smash, rather 
than risk my hands.” Yet I did not do so. 

A bomb with a lighted end was once thrown on the 
deck of a vessel in a group of sailors. One of them 
immediately sprang forward, picked it up, and 
plunged it into a pail of water. The others were 
paralyzed with fear. Why, among them all, did this 
man play the hero? 

I do not know. A psychologist would doubtless 
easily explain it. 


IT DOESNT SHOW 


Now conversion is that something in the mind and 
heart of us which bridges over the gap between the 
probability and the possibility—and makes it become 
a certainty. It is something within us which seems 
_ suddenly to break down everything and which gives 
us voice to say, “At last I understand.” After 
that, there is no turning back, no matter what hap- 
pens. 

Yet conversion may produce no outward change. 
The life of a man goes on about the same. He is no 


CONVERSION 235 


better, necessarily, so far as his immediate conduct 
is concerned. He is actually in the position of one 
who has declared himself bankrupt. His job there- 
after is to pull things together, to build up a new 
business from the wreck of the old. 

Conversion is not the necessary outcome of any 
particular set of religious ideas. Buddha experi- 
enced conversion. So, undoubtedly, did Lao Tse, 
Confucius, and Socrates, as well as Paul. ‘There are 
only two things about conversion which it is neces- 
sary to understand: it is always preceded by humility, 
and it is always the result of the casting off of our 
sense life. These are closely allied. 

Humility is something quite different from a sense 
of inferiority. Humility not only deals with one’s 
life, but with every one else. Humility is the realiza- 
tion of the fact that we, all of us, as we are, are 
nothing in ourselves; that our boasted brain power is 
a quicksand. Along with this comes the sweeping 
idea that the reality we feel within us is linked up 
with Permanence, and this permanence is our Creator, 
or God. Once these two convictions meet, the re- 
sult is conversion; and that, I suppose, is as near as 
it can be described. It is certainly amusing to see 
people who have never experienced it try to de- 
scribe it. 


236 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


NOTHING IS REALLY LOST 


It should also be understood (and this is very im- 
portant) that merely because an individual has not 
been converted does n’t mean that he is lost, or that 
a converted person is better than an unconverted. All 
human beings are perfect in themselves. If we 
would only carry this thought about with us, the world 
would indeed be changed. Besides, it is true. The 
imperfections which people seem to have are not a 
part of themselves. You may ask me, if this is the 
case, then what do I mean by people being destroyed? 
All I mean is that the very idea of imperfection is 
only self-destruction and has nothing at all to do 
with the persons, between whom and reality it stands. 
If, for example, your friend lies to you, that is not 
your friend who is lying, but it is discord which steps 
in between you. He simply allows this discord to 
remain with him, because he has not been enlightened 
—that is, he is ignorant by just so much. 


CHAOS 


All so-called wickedness is nothing but a seething 
mass of self-destruction, and this is proved by the 
fact that it is constantly dying out; it cannot maintain 
itself. If you will examine your friends closely, you 


CONVERSION 237 


will discover that those you think are hopeless in 
some respect will suddenly say something disclosing 
a totally different point of view from what you had 
previously thought of them. That is their real self, 
generally hidden from you by clouds of misunder- 
standing and discord. Therefore, you never know 
what others really are, and for this reason it is not 
only unsafe, but it is very wrong, to judge them in 
any way; they may be much farther advanced than 
you are. The standards you may judge them by may 
be sense standards, or mere conventionalities set up 
by the world. The moment any misunderstanding 
comes to you about any one else, look immediately to 
yourself. There the trouble lies. Disloyalty, lying, 
greed, selfishness, envy, etc., in your friends is no 
part of them. You make these things worse when 
you give them reality. 


KNOW THYSELF! 


What happens in conversion is that you suddenly 
become aware of your real self, the permanent, un- 
dying self. And in true conversion, this gives you 
the opportunity to see the real self in all others. 
What happens in the phenomena of self-destruction 
is that the individual gets farther and farther away 
from understanding of reality, until the real self dis- 


238 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


appears. I don’t know where it goes. I have never 
found anybody who did. I know that in all cases it 
is imperishable. If you ask me how I know, I can 
only reply that this spiritual understanding cannot be 


described. 


IN A NUTSHELL 


If the reader has followed me up to this point, he 
will see that my claim is that 

First: Destruction, either in whole or part, is the 
logical outcome of living in the senses. 

Second: The American people as a whole are 
blind to their danger. The real self of the American 
people is worthy of being preserved. It will be 
preserved. 

Third: Conversion is not a narrow religious proc- 
ess, but is a basic principle, the lives of a few great 
men in all ages revealing it. 

Fourth: It is only through conversion that one 
can be saved from unreality. 

Fifth: Conversion is an individual affair. It is 
from within out, and not from without in. It cannot 
come through the emotions of large groups, but only 
through the gradual spread of understanding through 
single individuals outward to the mass. 

Conversion may come in the near future, however, 


CONVERSION 239 


through the union of science and religion, or mysti- 
cism, and before concluding this chapter I shall give 
a brief outline of this possibility. Indeed, I am so 
strongly convinced that conversion will eventually, 
and perhaps by a narrow margin, come about in this 
way, that I regard it not as a possibility, but as a 
certainty. Let me add that I would prefer to use the 
word mysticism instead of religion, as it means more 
to me, but I shall continue with the word religion as it 
is more easily grasped, although I would not confine 
its meaning to the narrow materialistic sense. By re- 
ligion I mean essentially the doctrine of reality, that 
is to say, the transcendent knowledge in and under- 
standing of the reality of the spiritual life, as op- 
posed to the unreality of the world or the life of the 
senses. In the sense I mean, conversion is therefore 
only a conviction of reality. 


THE UNION OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE 


From the time of Aristotle up to date, scientists 
have been steadily and progressively engaged in col- 
lecting and arranging the known material facts of life. 
From the data thus classified, the total content of 
which must of necessity be constantly changing, vari- 
ous principles have been evolved, and these princi- 
ples, constantly modified by the discovery of new 


240 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


data, have gone through a continuous process of evolu- 
tion. In the time of Democritus, the electron had 
been theoretically hinted at, but not until the higher 
mathematics had also been developed could the actual 
track of the electron be followed.’ 

Newton’s law of gravitation gave way to Einstein’s 
law of relativity. Euclid gave way before the deadly 
ultimata of the Italian calculators. In biology, the 
Mendelian researches followed Darwin, and the germ 
plasm was the offspring. In psychology, Freud and 
Jung, largely through the study of dreams, developed 
what may be termed the pseudo-science of psycho- 
analysis. Nevertheless, this science has substantially 
changed the whole literature of thought. Along 
with these great movements in science (I refer the 
reader to the voluminous text-books, as I can merely 
hint at the progress made), there have come enormous 
improvements not only in transportation and com- 
munication (telephone, motor-car, biplane, radio). 
Considered chronologically and from a bird’s-eye 


1 The futility, even of mathematics, to satisfy the demands of the 
human consciousness, is shown in a sentence by Fritz Reiche, 
Professor of Physics in the University of Breslau, in his fine book 
“The Quantum Theory” (Dutton): “None the less, no one who 
studies the quantum theory will be spared bitter disappointment. 
For we must admit that, in spite of a comprehensive formulation of 
quantum rules, we have not come one step nearer to understanding 
the matter.” The heart of the matter is God, if this dear professor 
did but know it. 


CONVERSION 241 


view, it is incredible how swiftly these extraordinary 
developments have come. 

Meanwhile, the discovery that all matter is com- 
posed of electrons (the full significance of which is 
not yet realized), together with the rapidity with 
which people all over the world are coming together 
in one vast family, all point to one conclusion, 
namely, that the material world upon which we seem 
to be fixed is in itself but a point in the universe of 
infinity. As people thus draw nearer together, they 
can no longer hate one another, and war will cease. 
Allied with this gradual understanding on the part of 
science of the nothingness of matter, will come the 
gradual spread of the mystical view and understand- 
ing through increasing conversions, so that it is no idle 
dream to picture, in time, the union of the two great 
contrasting conceptions, the scientific and the re- 
ligious or mystical. Indeed, they are much nearer 
now than is supposed. With this, wickeaness and 
discord will fade, and likewise suffering, and it will 
come to be understood that God has never had any 
part in this, that it is a phase of unreality. 

It is almost needless for me to say that the sole 
object of this book, as defective as I realize it must be, 
is to bring out this conception into bold relief, and 
to furnish if possible a kind of inspiration and guide 


242 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


to those individuals who may now be on the verge 
of a deeper understanding (conversion) without 
knowing it, and who have the necessary courage to 
break the bonds of the senses. 

If certain sections of this book (pessimistic) seem 
inconsistent with other sections (optimistic), the 
reader will understand that the whole problem is too 
vast to pin down to one narrow point of view, and 
that Iam merely looking at it from different angles. 


MY CONVERSION 


The events leading to my own conversion took 
place over a number of years. As I have endeavored 
to make plain in the preceding chapter, this should 
not be taken in any too emotional sense. It is not 
necessary, when experiencing conversion, to have 
convulsions. My first impulse after being converted 
was, however, to proclaim it to everybody. I had a 
passionate desire to make all others see what I had 
seen. But to my amazement I discovered that I 
could tell nobody. I did not refer to the matter 
even to the one through whom my conversion came, 
except in a casual manner. He took it as a matter 
of course. It did not seem necessary to say anything 
to him about it. 


e e e e e e e 


CONVERSION 243 


Indeed, I was in a most tragic position. I had al- 
ways been lukewarm in my religious views, and 
although conventionally a member of the church, I 
rarely went. 

My experience began with a revulsion of feeling 
over the materialism with which I was surrounded. 
I had been strongly impressed by the life of Tolstoy, 
but it seemed to me then, and it does now, that he was 
wrong in abandoning his family. He says himself 
that one cannot influence others. However, I must 
not judge him. They may have driven him out. 

As for myself, I determined to turn over my money 
to my family. I did so, accepting a small allowance. 
Afterward, I prided myself on this virtue. I did not 
realize that all I had done was to evade all the re- 
sponsibility. I was presented with everything I 
wanted. Later, I saw this smug act in its true light. 


One can scarcely describe a spiritual awakening in 
words of dust, because the illumination is indescrib- 


able. 


So far as my consciousness was concerned, it was 
precisely as if it had been flooded literally with a 
great light and this light had swept it clean. 


244 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


Everything was utterly new and strange to me, but 
how wonderful it was! I recall getting up early the 
next morning and looking out at the sun and thinking 
to myself that never before had I seen such a sun, 
never had there been such a glorious sun in the 
heavens. All objects carried an aura. And I was 
settled. I stole every moment I could just to be by 
myself and try to bring back the glory of that flooding. 
Alas! How little I dreamed what was to come! 


Believe me when I say it is terribly hard to give 
up the flesh-pots, especially when you are not so bad 
after all. You are working hard, supporting your- 
self, and aren't you entitled to a good time? Why 
should you trouble yourself too much about an un- 
known God—a God about whom the theologians and 
the pulpiteers are disputing so continually—why 
should you trouble about a church which is so filled 
with smug hypocrites, who would rob you of your 
last dollar, if they could, while thrusting a Bible into 
your hands?—that’s the point. 


I have referred only briefly and incidentally to 
this experience, and in the most imperfect manner. 
Those who have been through it will understand it. 


CONVERSION 245 


Those who have not, can have no understanding at 
all of its meaning. 

The real reason why we have difficulty in convinc- 
ing ourselves of the reality of God and the Spirit is 
that we have no means of reasoning except that which 
comes from the senses. In stating this, I mean, of 
course, superficially. Beneath the surface we have 
every means, and our souls acknowledge the ex- 
istence of God even when our mortal minds re- 
pudiate him and deny him. 

One individual experience of the presence of God 
is worth all the polemical literature in the world. 
Education and the intellect drop to incidents. In 
every one I meet I can see the reflection of God. It 
is only obscured. 

One of our most dangerous barriers to a spiritual 
life, it seems to me, is Envy, to which I refer later 
more specifically. I mean this: we instinctively 
know all along that we must choose between God and 
Mammon, but we look about us and see so many men 
with money, so many successful, all of them having 
apparently a good time, that we say to ourselves: 
“Tt can’t be true. All one has to do is to get money 
enough to be comfortable, control one’s self within 
reason, and that’s the easiest way out.” 


246 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


The fact is that each one of us, under the spell of 
this mortal dream, fails to understand the sufferings 
of others. By suffering, I do not mean the kind of 
agony, the restlessness, the frightful evading, which 
goes on constantly among the successful to which I 
refer elsewhere. Ask yourself this question: In 
your past moments of greatest agony, how many have 
known it? Is it not true that you have held up your 
head, that you have been impassive, indeed, that, in 
your outward appearance, you have looked precisely 
like all those calm people you now meet, and whom 
possibly you are secretly envying? 


The road is difficult. But have no fear. The 
outcome is already determined. 

“Behold I give unto you power . . . over all the 
power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means 
hurt you.” 

This is a true message for all of us who have chosen 
the straight and narrow path. 

“When thou art troubled,’ declares Thomas a 
Kempis, “then is the time of merit.” 

And Paul said: 

“If God be with us, who can be against us?” 


CONVERSION | 247 


SILENCE 


Conversion is undoubtedly a kind of stillness. 
The dream-world condition is one of noise, clamor, 
constant vibration. Thus, in the slow transfer from 
one state to the other, there is increasing calm. 

One of the most singular and mystifying things 
about the spiritual life is the fact that it is exactly 
the reverse in all respects of the material life. In 
the material life, we think that what we hear and see 
is real. In the spirit life we know that what is heard 
and seen by the material ear and eye is unreal. 

I could go on down the list and show that this law 
holds good universally. But just at present my sub- 
ject is silence. 

Silence is the greatest power in the universe. It is 
even greater than love. This seems impossible, until 
we consider that love is comprehended by silence. 
And the reason is not far to seek. For it is only by 
silence that God can work. Absolute silence is ab- 
solute understanding. Beyond this we cannot go. 
The greatest spirits in every age have understood this 
law. 

Now one of the things that is true of a spiritual 
law is that it always holds good in the material world. 
And the reason for this is that the things which hap- 
pen in the material world—or which seem to happen 


248 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


—are only manifestations of the spirit. You will, 
no doubt, ask me if hate is a manifestation of the 
spirit, if a murder is a manifestation. My reply is 
that there are two sets of manifestations. For gen- 
eral purposes we may classify them into destructive 
and constructive; and if we proceed a little farther 
along this line, we may even seem to contradict our- 
selves by saying that all destructive manifestations 
are not manifestations at all, but are only their lack. 

It is very difficult for the average person to under- 
stand the enormous difference between the merely 
physical and the spiritual life, in so far as the 
qualities inherent in human nature are involved. It 
seems impossible to believe that it may easily require 
a much higher kind of courage to enter one’s bed- 
chamber at night, than it does to go out on the battle- 
field in broad daylight, with the bullets chipping all 
about. 

The fact is that the actions of human beings on 
battle-fields are almost purely automatic or even 
hypnotic. It is true that men suffer before they go 
into battle, but they have no choice in the matter. 
“Theirs but to do and die.” And it is a matter of 
record that physical fighting rapidly becomes a kind 
of habit. Spiritual fighting is a quite different affair. 

A friend of mine was engaged in an enterprise 
which was backed by a man who was many times a 


CONVERSION 249 


millionaire. This man was a bachelor. He lived in 
a New York hotel. After putting in a few thousand 
dollars into my friend’s business, which promised to 
be successful, he had agreed to advance a still larger 
sum, which he could easily afford to give, or to in- 
vest, if you will. That is to say, he was to guarantee 
the credit by some twenty thousand dollars, as I re- 
call it. His income was between two and three 
hundred thousand dollars a year. 

The papers were all drawn up, and my friend had 
to have them signed. He was naturally jubilant over 
the prospect and considered that his struggle to put 
his enterprise on its feet was now over. As a pre- 
liminary, he had sent the papers to the millionaire 
at his hotel. Several hours later he made his way 
there. 

As he changed from the subway to the surface car, 
he stopped at a stand to buy a paper. What was his 
horror to discover that the millionaire had shot him- 
self a few hours before. The act had been consum- 
mated in a fit of depression, to which the millionaire 
was addicted. My friend hurried to the hotel, only 
to discover that the papers he had so carefully sent 
were unsigned. The envelope had been opened and 
tossed aside. The millionaire had hurried himself 
off in his despair without thinking of my friend’s 
fate. Later, my friend was so overcome by the shock 


250 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


of this disappointment that he fell ill and never 
recovered. The last I ever heard of him he was a 
cripple. He placed too much reliance on a material 
thing. 


UNREALITY 


I mention this incident in order to show one in- 
stance of a spurious spiritual struggle which resulted 
in the bodily destruction of a human being who, in 
normal circumstances, should have been able to lead 
a happy and peaceful life. These instances are 
common enough. There is of course a very wide gap 
between the struggle of a human soul in search of 
God and the morbid despair of a man who is wander- 
ing about in the toils of the dream mind. In the first 
case, the man has awakened from his dream and is 
accustomed to battle with evil, willing to lay down 
his mortal body readily for God. He constantly 
grows nearer to that peace that passeth all under- 
standing. In the other case, he has not awakened 
from his dream. Without realizing that, for the 
most helpless of mortals, there is a Saviour at hand, 
he yields to his illusion. Personally, I have the most 
heartfelt sympathy for such cases, knowing as I do 
how, even in the midst of a spiritual struggle, 
thoughts of suicide are constantly present. 


CONVERSION 251 


Harry Emerson Fosdick, in his book “The Meaning 
of Prayer’ has referred to the fact that all of the 
great decisions take place in the closet, or in retire- 
ment. Marshal Foch said at the moment when the 
war was determined, sitting in his farm-house re- 
moved from the battle-line: “I am not a fighter. 
My business is to think.” 

We see enormous physical and material bodies 
removed, we see cataclysms, debacles, great changes 
made on the surface of the earth, new buildings 
going up, wonderful dams being made, men mowed 
down by thousands in a few moments—we see all 
these things and it is hard to realize that they, after 
all, are only manifestations of thought. Some one 
in retirement has planned them all. Napoleon’s life 
is a perfect example. He was able to win the Italian 
campaign because, beforehand, he had made a mi- 
nute study of the topography of the country and knew 
exactly how and when and how fast he could move 
his armies. 

Look on the illuminated faces of Cardinal New- 
man or Cardinal Mercier. Examine the faces of 
the Roman emperors. See how brutality and in- 
tellect have left their marks there. Consider how 
men have gone out to martyrdom with smiles on their 
faces, with peace written on their brows, and you will 


252 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


get a glimpse of the sublime power that may come to 
any man in the desert. 


ANIMAL MAN IS GAME 


Physical courage is so common that, among thou- 
sands and thousands, there are but few exceptions. 
It is easily acquired. Grant relates that at the battle 
of Shiloh the men who had never been in battle be- 
fore, and who fled to the rear, were afterward among 
his best soldiers. One dose of physical cowardice 
cures itself. The arena of the spiritual is so far 
above the physical that it is impossible to define the 
difference to those who have not experienced it. 

When one first enters the spiritual life he is insen- 
sitive, to which I shall refer more particularly later 
on. For instance, I can recall even quite recently 
the fact that going to the theater or playing what 
seems a simple game of golf could in the beginning 
by no possible means have been presented to me in 
the nature of a sin. Yet now to indulge in either of 
these things would lift them at once to a level of 
importance which they have not. 

I hasten to add that I am giving this only as an 
illustration of the development of spiritual insight, 
and not in any way to imply that I myself am any 
better because I do not play golf or go only rarely to 


CONVERSION 253 


the theater, or have the slightest objection to either. 
That, indeed, does not make me any better. And 
that is why so many people are fooled, it seems to 
me. The fact is this: that as we come to en- 
ter into the spiritual life, the things of the flesh 
become more and more unnecessary for us. We do 
not “give up” golf or the theater as something 
denied, but they drop away because we have no 
time to pass from Reality. They don’t “make 
good.” 


REAL CONVERSION 


What I mean, when I speak of being converted or 
of spiritual development, is that the barrier of matter 
is slowly being removed. The mere fact that, how- 
ever dimly, I am still able to discern all as being per- 
fect, and that there is no distinction of intellect or 
learning or breeding—all this is evidence that I have 
gained that much. There was a time when [I instinc- 
tively shunned the contact with the poor,—I thought I 
might rub off some of their poverty; but now I know 
that they are often—and generally—the ones whose 
spiritual sight is clearer than mine. Why, indeed, 
should it not be so? 

It seems to me that I am sorriest for those who are 
in the deepest dream, yet I do not know that I ought 
to be, because I am in reality here confronted by a 


254 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


mystery that I do not understand. In some of my 
old, cynical moments, I used to think of how useless 
certain people were because they had a lot of money 
(and I didn’t!). But after all, what do I actually 
know about them? 


WE MUST BE PATIENT 


It takes a very long, long time, and much prayer 
and discipline, to look out upon this world and see 
nothing but God. You have, first, to be blinded to 
everything you have formerly thought was real. 
You have to know that it is nothing. Then, when you 
look out upon human beings, you see them in the 
right way—you see them entirely divested of their 
bodies—you see nothing but perfection. What we 
call their bodies are naught but manifestations. It 
is a wonderful thing when you first come to know it. 

If you say to the Mystic, therefore, “How am I to 
believe you?” the Mystic replies in the only way 
that he can, “Do as I have done and you will get the 
same result that I have.” 

That is all I can do. In the beginning, I took no- 
body’s word for it. For years and years I was an 
outward Christian, along with millions of others who 
went to church occasionally and belonged to what is 
known as a Christian country. I believed nothing 


CONVERSION 259 


and cared less. I had tried everything else and 
found that I got no results. I had gone to church and 
listened to sermons. Suddenly I experienced a feel- 
ing of revulsion at the world. To put it plainly, the 
world I had known bored me. It not only pained 
me, but it bored me. I saw that if this was the be-all 
and end-all of existence, life was scarcely worth 
living. I then looked into all the philosophies and 
all the religions, and still got no relief. After all 
this had happened, I began to pray directly to my 
Creator. And as soon as I did this, things began to 
move on the face of the waters. 

Very slowly, it seemed; also, at times, very unsatis- 
factorily. I certainly suffered. I was lost time and 
again—and found. I went through everything. I 
had to touch bottom all along the line, until finally, 
having arrived where I now am, I have a double sense 
of things. 


SEEING DOUBLE 


What do I mean by a double sense of things? I 
will tell you immediately. 

First, I saw that all this old world I had loved was 
actually and absolutely run by God, and that God 
was actually and absolutely taking care of the people 
in this world whom I had thought I was responsible 


256 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


for. Is this a very big thought? Believe me when 
I say that it is one of the biggest thoughts there is. 
I had been worrying myself sick over the people I 
had thought all along I alone was responsible for, 
and here I saw quite plainly that God was taking care 
of them in his own way and that I had nothing to do 
with this but to look pleasant. 

Well, I actually did look pleasant. The result of 
this was that those people I loved, and thought, 
before, I was responsible for, suddenly (spiritually) 
realized that a great change had taken place in me; 
and so they were actually and absolutely hanging on 
to me and seeking to do what I had formerly wished 
them to do, but could not get them to do. What 
in the world (or out of it) is this but the power of 
God? 


THE GAIN 


Let me here briefly indicate the gain in a period 
of about six years, over my former state of unrest, 
worry, ill health and cynical agnosticism. 

1. All my needs supplied with incredible detail 
and accuracy. 

2. The gradual replacement of monotonous ma- 
terial thoughts of the senses with increasing multi- 
tude of spiritual ideas, this furnishing a complete 


CONVERSION 257 


and constant occupation, making me entirely inde- 
pendent of material sources. 

3. Enormous increase in volume and capacity 
for work, and almost total absence of any fatigue. 

4. Marvellous results in healing, both of self and 
others. 

5. Absolute and unchanging faith in a Creator 
constantly present; of real Love and universal power, 
resulting in growing sense of Peace unruffled by any 
shifting material conditions. 

6. Readjustment of attitude toward world in gen- 
eral, including sense of beauty, freedom from fear, 
so that all things appear in a new light. 

7. Total elimination of all fear of so-called 
death. 

It should be noted that this seven-fold enlarge- 
ment is by no means a state of perfection. There 
are periods of suffering and depression—regres- 
sions. But the contrast between the present and for- 
mer state is so marked that it is a constant source of 
gratitude. 

Also, this progress is in line with historical devel- 
opment. In his essay on Shelley, Walter Bagehot 
remarks: “The whole of religion rests on a faith 
that the universe is solely ruled by an almighty and 
perfect Being. This strengthens with the moral cul- 
tivation, and grows with the improvement of mankind. 


258 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


It is the assumed axiom of the creed of Christen- 
dom; and all that is really highest in our race may 
have the degree of its excellence tested by the degree 
of the belief in it.” Indeed, it is only necessary to 
review the nations of the world; we shall see that 
those who believe in a supreme Being are most ad- 
vanced in every particular. 


LITTLE BY LITTLE 


No, I don’t mean to convey the’ idea that every- 
thing is yet perfect. We are dealing here with abso- 
lute truth. It is just as much of an exactitude as the 
higher mathematics. Therefore, I am only laying 
down a great principle of spiritual conduct. I am 
showing that all this was suddenly given to me as an 
understanding of the truth. It remains to complete 
the process by gradually getting more and more into 
the light of God’s continual presence. I am using 
symbolic words to express my meaning. I can use 
none other. I cannot get wholly out of the world. 
The fact is, actually and practically, I am more in it 
than ever. I have absorbed the world in Love, trans- 
muted it in my consciousness through God—that is, 
by means of His power to answer prayer. 

Now in doing all this, or in seeing and knowing it 
come to pass, you must understand that those things 


CONVERSION 259 


which are eternal are now demonstrated in my con- 
sciousness as absolute. They are, Humility, Obe- 
dience, Love, Truth, Life. For instance, I no longer 
have to question myself about Humility. It is n’t at 
all that I now practice humility as I might. On the 
contrary! But don’t you see that this sort of thing 
no longer worries me, because now I understand 
humility, and also, this stands for this other self. 
The Christ spirit is necessary. It is what enables 
us to get our understanding of God. If now I sin, 
this sin is something which is not a part of me. It 
belongs in the mortal life, the dream life. It is 
nothing. I cannot persist in it because it has no ex- 
istence. Christ has done just that for me. 


NOT MATERIAL 


This is not the historical Christ, you understand, 
the mortal Jesus. JI mean that the Christ spirit is 
something that always was (“Before Abraham was, I 
AM”) and which simply had to be demonstrated 
through mortality. Public opinion is no longer a 
graven image. It doesn’t make the slightest differ- 
ence to me how many mathematicians may scorn 
me, or philosophers or deep thinkers or scientists de- 
ride me. I beat them right on their own ground, and 
right under their own eyes I use exactly and pre- 


260 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


cisely the same methods they use, and prove my case. 
If they doubt this, let them use the same formula that 
I use. Let anybody use the same formula. It is 
open to all. I can prove to anybody that there is a 
God if you will just follow my formula. I am only 
asking you to do what any mathematician does when 
he solves a problem. First, you must want to solve 
the problem of God. That, of course, is necessary. 
The rest follows. 

All you do is to say: “I advance the hypothesis, 
good for six months, that there is a God. The at- 
tributes of this God are that he created me and that 
he is running the universe. I will act, for six months, 
as if this were true. If at the end of six months, after 
faithfully following this hypothesis, I get no results, 
then I shall thereafter conclude there is no God and 
act accordingly.” 

Is n’t that a fair and logical proposition? What 
next? 

Just follow the arrow. And the arrow leads to a 
closet. All you do is to pray to God, believing that if 
He is omnipotent, He will answer your prayer. You 
can say for example: 

“O God, if there is a God, I beg that for the space 
of six months you will listen to me. I am going 
on the assumption that you are really God, Help 
Thou my unbelief.”’ 


CONVERSION 261 


After this, repeat the Lord’s prayer every day for 
six months, and ask for what you want. And then 
wait for results. Remember that you have got to be 
honest. If there is a God, as you are assuming, you 
cannot fool Him. You must, absolutely and truly, 
act as if he was really God. 

No mathematician, when he starts to prove some- 
thing from a hypothesis, tries to trick himself with 
false figures. Neither must you. 


ib etiep uy ae aay 
rise aah 


ated 4 


{gio a epee ot “aac 


cy 


Brat 


AaGh 
hf PNAS: mah 


atts 


\ ae aN gy 


Die pla side ie bots vs i allah 
me heist atta a 


7 





THE CHURCHES 


In this chapter the author contrasts the various churches, 
and their relationship to the individual. Being collections 
of individuals, they partake of the same inconsistencies. 
The problem of going or not going to church is here con- 
sidered. 


THE CHURCHES 


ATTACKS on the churches are too frequently based 
on erroneous judgment. 

When anything is criticized, that in itself is an ad- 
mission that there must be good in it. We do not 
criticize the devil. 

No critic would be willing to admit that his sole 
object is to destroy; yet that is the effect of criticism 
unaccompanied by a statement of the good in the thing 
criticized. 

Instead, therefore, of attacking anything from the 
outside, we should reverse our tactics and take the 
position that the thing itself is subject to attacks. 
We should defend it instead of criticizing it. Thus 
we not only uncover the evil, but also open the way 
for the evil to be removed. 

This important principle is almost wholly over- 
looked in ordinary life. Yet a proper understanding 
of it would revolutionize the world. 


WHO CASTS THE FIRST STONE? 


There is good in everything, however much it may 


apparently be concealed. There is good in the low- 
265 


266 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


est criminal. Impelled by wrong motives, the crim- 
inal attacks the state. In return, the state crushes 
him, stamps out the good in him. I am not here ad- 
vocating leniency toward criminals; I am advocating 
understanding. The evil in each case should be 
eliminated, so that the good is permitted to produce 
more good. The tares should be separated from the 
wheat. The state does not discriminate between the 
tares and the wheat. 

The attacks made on all the churches vary from 
contemptuous indifference to downright abuse. 

A great deal of genuine religion flows through all 
the churches. Owing to differences of temperament, 
heredity, environment, etc., it is probably necessary 
to have a variety of churches. This variety of 
machinery is unimportant, although the machinery of 
one church often seems ridiculous to the members of 
another. Also, the expense of separate establish- 
ments is considerable. 

I shall here make no attempt to write about the 
churches except as they affect the main theme of this 
book. 

In each church, there is reason to believe there is a 
group of mystics who have experienced genuine con- 
version. ‘These constitute a very small part of the 
membership, and there is reason to believe they may 


THE CHURCHES 267 


be wholly unknown to the rest, who attend from fear 
or desire for social sensations. The general con- 
version and spiritual development of any individual 
may have little to do with his connection with any 
church. 

Owing to the fact that few people in the beginning 
have any spiritual development, it is necessary to 
attract and hold them by material machinery. The 
laissez faire, or dependent, attitude of the vast ma- 
jority of human beings seems to make it necessary 
to place themselves under some kind of authority. 
Thus the churches have a ritual, either simple or elab- 
orate, according to their traditions, and this ritual is 
reinforced by the sermon. A church service may in- 
deed be considered as symbolic, but the fact remains 
that with the majority it is an appeal to the senses. 
It is too often a spiritual substitute. 


THE ROMAN CATHOLICS 


However much we may deprecate the bigotry and 
gross materialism in its elaborate ritualism, and the 
enormous cruelties that have stained its historical 
path, we must not forget that in its long line of Mys- 
tics, from Augustine to Newman, the Church of Rome 
has contributed a continuity of genuine spiritual in- 


268 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


spiration unmatched in any other domain of human 
consciousness. 

Indeed, when we survey any religious institution, 
Catholic or Protestant, or neutral (like the Unita- 
rian), we must remember that they are all mixtures of 
reality and unreality, of good and bad, largely hu- 
man, and never but fractionally divine. This rule, 
indeed, runs through all things. It applies to lan- 
guage as much as to institutions. For while else- 
where I have laid stress upon the failure of language 
to convey spiritual meanings, it must be remembered 
that certain words are lifted out of their material soil 
and become spiritualized by long association with 
Reality. Just as the words God, Love, Truth, Christ 
are all genuine symbols of immortality, so the Roman 
Church, through the lives of its saints, has created 
permanent spiritual assets for all mankind in the two 
greatest words of conduct, namely, Humility and 
Obedience. It is a pity, however, that, in order to 
safeguard its material structure, this church should 
compel those who marry its communicants to sign 
off their future children to be Roman Catholics. 
This is un-American in that it delegates to a foreign 
ecclesiastical institution the power to restrict our 
liberties. Yet Protestant sects often display fully 
as much bigotry as this, and for smaller protective 
reasons. 


THE CHURCHES 269 


THE DEVIL STILL HERE 


A personal devil and a literal hell are still sub- 
scribed to in a number of our states. Indeed, a list of 
compulsions forced upon simple-minded human be- 
ings by religious institutions in this modern and pre- 
sumably enlightened age is not creditable to the 
boasted advance of civilization, and scarcely credible 
to those of us whose only object, in our short stay here, 
is to love our neighbors and get as close to God as we 
can. Considering the churches, religious societies, 
and sects as a whole, and freely acknowledging that 
each one of them is in some measure a conductor of 
Love from God to Man, yet it must also be constantly 
repeated that they are all man-made and therefore, by 
their rules, may often impede the fullest religious 
life. Why should so many Episcopalians think that 
by going to communion once a year (Easter) and 
denying themselves either candy or cigarettes during 
Lent, they have thus consummated a cheap bargain 
with God, on their own terms? Furthermore a 
church is too likely to be dominated by a clique. 

Religion is ceaseless prayer, which sets aside no 
special season in which women, otherwise overcome 
with social duties, can obtain a much needed rest. 
There is not a moment in the life of a real religious 
when he is not keeping Lent. Nobody’s Church 


270 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


would be an ideal structure, dedicated to the continu- 
ous communion with Reality. 


TRUTH 


We are here, at least we ought to be here, to tell 
the truth, or as much of the truth as we can. This 
being so, I think it ought to be made plain that life 
is not an easy matter for any of us. There is such 
a thing as being a fool optimist as well as an impos- 
sible pessimist, and the cheerio pest may become a 
worse pest than the chronic grouch, who at least has 
the consideration generally to keep silent. 

There is, absolutely and unquestionably, a sustain- 
ing power which not only can carry us through to the 
end of mortal life, but which, under its own condi- 
tions, does do this, keeping us, in the main, serene, 
with our heads well above water and without anxious 
care. But it may as well be acknowledged that the 
rare privilege of linking ourselves with this power 
is not to be had for the mere asking. We must be 
doers as well as hearers of the word. Upon the very 
threshold of our great decision and all along the seem- 
ingly tortuous path that leads upward, it is not only 
possible, but in the highest degree comforting to know 
that we are not alone, that we are only one of a vast 
company. Herein, in its combined spiritual aspects 


THE CHURCHES 271 


undoubtedly lies the value of churches. The world’s 
greatest men and women not only have acknowledged 
their weakness and despair, but many of them have 
been saved from destruction by a hair. Buddha fled 
his home, leaving wife and child. Lao Tse went into 
the wilderness. Paul acknowledged his weakness 
time and again. Augustine was saved only by a 
mother’s ardent prayers. Tolstoy was on the verge 
of suicide. Apparently the same thing was true of 
Lincoln during his unfortunate love affair. Ben- 
jamin Franklin, perhaps the greatest mind produced 
in America, freely confesses to dishonesty. No one 
escapes either, on one side, the restlessness brought 
on by immersion in materialism, or, on the other 
side, the fine interior struggle which goes on in the 
souls of those who slowly mount to spiritual heights. 
The physical evidence lies written broadly in human 
faces in repose. “Everything is fine,” says every- 
body. Pride puts her smiling mask over every 
family skeleton. 

In more recent years, when tolerance has been a 
growing asset among people, the intolerance exhibited 
by churches toward one another would seem to be 
incredible if it were not so obtrusive. It is here that 
the greatest difficulty presents itself to the lonely soul 
looking for light. 

In a large city it has been demonstrated over and 


272 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


over that if some quack lecturer, whose actual purpose 
is concealed behind an outward show of altruism, ad- 
vertises free lectures to humanity, telling them how 
to be happier, his place will be crowded to suffoca- 
tion. This reveals the pathetic fact that men and 
women everywhere crave spiritual enlightenment, 
and are willing to go to an immense amount of trouble 
to receive it. Contrasted with this we have the 
spectacle of empty pews in all places where the clergy- 
man cannot preach popular sermons. 


THE TWO CHURCHES OF THE FUTURE 


The prediction has been made that the two churches 
of the future will be the Christian Science and the 
Roman Catholic. Certain it is that these two 
churches represent the extremes of religious fervor. 

The Christian Science churches are filled to over- 
flowing. Their manual teaches them to practise the 
spirit of universal love. They pay their bills, erect 
beautiful edifices without effort, heal diseases accord- 
ing to the teaching of Christ, and, owing to the strict 
discipline of keeping their minds pure, are exceed- 
ingly prosperous. Why is it then that they are so 
jeered at? Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy was a New 
Englander, and came from the same spiritual and 
geographical environment as Emerson and Thoreau. 


THE CHURCHES 273 


Her book is a great book. One may easily overlook 
her personality. All great men and women who 
have been spiritual leaders have been criticized and 
abused. That is not important so far as Mrs. Eddy 
is concerned. The only important thing is whether 
her book is spiritually sound. It has been dismissed 
by the intellectuals as so much balderdash. That 
hundreds of thousands of people follow its teachings 
daily and that the Christian Scientists are the only 
people who follow literally the teachings of the 
Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments 
is a fact that cannot be lightly cast aside. Further- 
more, the Christian Science Church has established 
reading-rooms in all large centers, and its worship 
of God appears to be not only as practical, but as 
genuinely spiritual, as any church in existence. Its 
literature is extraordinary, the “Christian Science 
Monitor” being one of the best newspapers in the 
country. This being so, the Christian Scientists 
cannot be dismissed as unintelligent. 


REASONS 


I think one of the reasons why the Christian Sci- 
entists arouse so much prejudice is because Mrs. Eddy 
is a woman and because her followers have attempted 
to deify her. JI am aware that this is strenuously 


274 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


denied; Mrs. Eddy herself combated it, especially 
after Mark Twain had accused her of it. Neverthe- 
less, the tendency is there. 

Another reason is that the Christian Science 
Church, in its material machinery, has not succeeded 
in overcoming the same tendencies we see in other 
churches. That is to say, the church-governing 
body has not risen above the material to the spiritual 
plane, but has been shaken by internal dissension, 
resulting in law-suits, and this has encouraged two 
outside leaders, who have gained large following, 
namely, Mrs. Augusta Stetson and Mrs. Annie C. Bill. 
It must also be remembered that the Christian Sci- 
entists have abandoned the position which has so 
consistently been maintained by all mystics from 
time immemorial, namely, to live in poverty. While 
adhering closely to the teaching of Christ in revealing 
the nothingness of matter and in denying the reality 
of material supplies, nevertheless many of them live 
literally in luxury. Christian Science practitioners 
make large incomes; and while it is not contended 
that they use their money for anything but the highest 
purposes, the fact that they encourage expenditure 
and large earnings raises the question as to how far 
this can be reconciled with the life of poverty laid 
down by ascetics and Christians heretofore in all ages. 
That there are abuses in the Christian Science Church 


THE CHURCHES 215 


there can be no doubt, but on the whole, the Chris- 
tian Science movement is worthy of the highest re- 
spect, because it is a demonstration in the great truth 
that by guarding the mind from all evil communica- 
tions, by holding the thought of Love, Life, and Truth, 
by worshiping God only in spirit and in truth, by 
refusing to follow any false gods, by obeying literally 
the commands of Jesus—in short, by practising 
Christianity, a large body of people show in their 
daily lives the enormous beneficial effects. It should 
also be remembered that most of the critics of Chris- 
tian Science have made only a slight study, if any at 
all, of Mrs. Eddy’s book, or have the least idea of 
what it means. This is revealed by the nature of 
their criticisms. ‘We are not Christian Scientists,” 
declares Mrs. Eddy, “until we leave all for Christ.” 
So far as spiritual healing is concerned, this is a 
subject upon which there is also a great deal of ig- 
norance displayed. It is enormously difficult, for 
the reason that it is practically impossible to convey, 
in material terms, any idea of it. All the arguments 
against spiritual healing are couched in terms of the 
material. For example, it is said that while a dis- 
ease which exists in the mind, largely due to nervous 
apprehension, and which temporarily paralyzes some 
member of the body may be healed by healing the 
thought, the same thing would not hold good with what 


276 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


is called organic diseases. It is also stated that 
Christian Science is nothing but a panacea for physi- 
cal ills. The truth is that in Christian Science much 
more stress is laid on error, as a whole,—and error 
includes all sin, discord, etc——than upon physical 
ailments. These appear to loom larger merely be- 
cause so many people have experienced relief that 
they incline to emphasize this phase. I am not a 
Christian Scientist myself, and this brief survey is not 
intended to convey any more than a plea for careful 
examination of the whole Christian Science program 
before passing judgment upon it. There are in the 
Christian Science Church, as in other churches, a 
small number of advanced mystics who reject the 
material machinery of the church management, and 
live in retirement from the world. 


SHALL I GO TO CHURCH? 


In the main, the problem that presents itself to 
any one who seeks God through the churches is not 
only what Church to attend but whether to go at all. 
The argument in favor of church-going is of course 
very strong, very insistent. It is thundered from the 
pulpit week after week. It declares it to be our duty 
to maintain the church, that, without the church, 


THE CHURCHES 277 


society would dissolve, that our children can be saved 
only in that way. What is one to do? 

It is not altogether what one gets out of a church, 
but what one puts into it. Many people regard a 
church as they would aclub. They are willing to pay 
a certain amount every year for insurance against 
future punishment to their children or possibly 
to themselves. 


WHY NOT ABOLISH THE CHURCHES? 


The fact is that the churches must exist for the good 
they do to individuals, and when they fail in this 
they fail altogether. It is not a selfish question there- 
fore which prompts an individual to ask himself 
“What can I get out of church?” for the reason that 
the church exists only for the purpose of supplying 
him with something he cannot get in any other way. 
His example is of course a factor, for it may en- 
courage others. But why encourage others to do 
something which has no benefit for you, and would 
not have for them? There is something doubtless to 
Bernard Shaw’s suggestion, that if all the churches 
were abolished, then such a spontaneous need would 


arise that the right kind of a church would rise to 
fill it. 


278 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


It seems to be that this whole question of the 
churches is one of dependence. It harks back to the 
problem I have referred to in my chapter on suicide, 
although at first sight this may seem very strange. 

It can be put in this way: Shall I seek God alone, 
or shall I depend on some one else? 

In modern life, the tendency is for each one of us 
to become a specialist, and from the surplus ac- 
cumulated to buy what we can as far as this surplus 
goes. In other words, we become mollycoddles in 
all respects but one. I say this is the tendency. Of 
course, there are limitations, even to the art of being 
a mollycoddle. Yet, when we come to examine our- 
selves critically, we may be astonished at the pitiful 
spectacle we present. There is scarcely anything that 
we know how to do except the one thing which sup- 
ports us. 


WHAT DO WE KNOW? 


We cannot make the spectacles we wear, nor the 
clothes. A great many of us have learned to run 
motor-cars, because the business of running one has 
been reduced to a few simple motions. But if one 
goes wrong, we are utterly incapable of setting it 
right and rely upon the nearest service man. For our 
information we rely upon newspapers, as also we do 


THE CHURCHES 279 


for our opinions. It may be said, I think without 
contradiction, that most people rely upon the churches 
for their religion. This is certainly true of both the 
Roman Catholic and the Christian Science churches, 
to both of which the most rigid obedience is required, 
although quite naturally the requirements differ 
radically. It is less true of the Protestant churches. 
Take them as a whole, most of them may have a rigid 
creed which in actual practice is not lived up to. 
For example, a body of Presbyterians who are at- 
tracted to a minister of another denomination may 
ask him to preach to them, alihough his belief is not 
in accord with the letter of theirs. This has hap- 
pened. Inasmuch as there is small choice among all 
of these churches so far as creeds are concerned, the 
confusion comes where we see them fighting over 
minor differences and all at sea about the divinity of 
Christ. What the average man wants, whose intelli- 
gence has been laid dormant by so many labor- and 
mind-saving devices as our modern civilization pre- 
sents, is to have a definite religion presented to him, 
one that he doesn’t have to think about. When he 
gets his life insured, he is handed a policy and, by 
reading this over and also by his general knowledge 
of what insurance companies must provide, he knows 
precisely what he is insured against and how much 
money his heirs will get when he dies. 


280 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


CUSTOM-MADE CONVICTIONS 


Now he asks for the same assurance with regard to 
his religion, and, as his time is much occupied with 
his specialty, he gives just as little attention to his 
religion as he can spare. That is, he goes to church 
once on Sunday and says his prayers once or twice in 
consonance with others. Occasionally he goes to 
a church entertainment. He is then classed as a 
church member and a Christian. Frequently he does 
not go at all, allowing his name to remain as a mem- 
ber on the church roll and paying whatever dues 
may be necessary. In this case he is still a church 
member and a Christian. With the two excep- 
tions I have mentioned, the churches condone this 
sort of thing, because their position is not strong 
enough to do anything else. To keep this kind of a 
Christian within their fold, they excite his attention 
as much as possible by entertainments, moving pic- 
tures, musical programs, and so on, but especially by 
sermons. Thus a first-class preacher is greatly in 
demand and is eagerly bid for by churches, very 
much as baseball players are passed around the cir- 
cuit. An eloquent preacher will command a large 
following, just as any good actor. He himself may 
be, and generally is, a fine type of Christian, sincere 


THE CHURCHES 281 


and devout. That does not detract in the least from 
the fact that the majority of people who hear him 
take their religion from his lips just as they sus- 
tain themselves by reading novels and editorials or 
eat the most palatable and nourishing food. 


THE FUTILITY OF IT 


Let us now consider the problem of the individual 
when, through some sorrow or other calamity, he sud- 
denly awakes from his mortal dream and is con- 
fronted by the great interrogation of life and death? 
This is the problem of you and me. We know that 
life at best is a continuous struggle, and that it takes 
every ounce of courage in us to keep going. We 
want a religion suddenly, maybe, and we want it 
mighty bad. Weare ina very real fight. There are 
moments when we feel like shooting ourselves. There 
are other moments when we fairly sink under the 
load, and particularly there are so many people we 
love dearly so close to us that we cannot well turn 
away from them. We feel suddenly our utter in- 
ability to keep going, and it is at this moment we send 
out our S O §S across the waters. These moments 
doubtless occur sometime to each and every one of 
us. They sweep over us generally without warning. 


282 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


WHAT ARE WE TO DO? 


Are we then to join a church, have our names on the 
roll, listen to a sermon once a week, and have all our 
problems settled for us? What is religion? we ask 
ourselves. 

Both the Roman Catholic and the Christian Sci- 
ence churches, in exactly opposite directions, have, 
it seems to me, fulfilled the requirements of individ- 
uals as I have stated them. Both churches require 
absolute obedience. The difference between them 
is, of course, immense. The Roman church requires 
confession, and gives absolution. The Christian 
Science requires immolation, constant guarding of 
one’s thoughts and actions, a literal doing of the 
word. In the Catholic church the priest provides 
the consolation; in the Christian Science church, the 
practitioner. Lourdes testifies to the miracles of 
healing performed by the Catholic saints, and the 
“Christian Science Sentinel’? publishes each week a 
record of healings in Science. 

In both cases there is dependence. 

I have no quarrel with any one who belongs to 
either of these churches or to any of the others. 

My claim is that something much more is necessary 
on the part of any man or woman who seeks God in 
the right way. Your business is directly between you 


THE CHURCHES 283 


and your Creator. Nothing else should be allowed 
to intervene. After you have once established this 
relationship, then the church doesn’t matter, only so 
far as you can further its spiritual aims or it can 
further yours. Belong by all means if you care to. 
As a material institution, however, it can have no 
validity for you. 


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Ay 





THE BIBLE 


In this chapter the author shows that the common method 
of reading and studying the Bible is not natural and tells 
why he thinks the Bible is of such supreme importance. 








THE BIBLE 


In stating the case for the Bible, I am by no means 
unmindful of the people who have been driven away 
from reading this book by some of its advocates— 
by the profound scholars who have written so many 
deadly introductions to it, by some of the earnest, 
but misguided, Sunday-school teachers who have suc- 
ceeded so successfully in robbing it of all interest and 
charm, and by that impregnable band of Biblical efh- 
ciency experts who insist that you must not read it un- 
less by breaking through the barbed-wire entangle- 
ments they have erected in front of it. 

Now occasionally one meets a human being pos- 
sessed of that doubtful abnormality, a mathematical 
mind, who takes to any system or fixed method as a 
duck takes to water. Such people revel in puzzle 
departments and all sorts of horrible exactitudes; 
and our good friends who devise methods of study- 
ing the Bible seem to do so in the conviction that 
these mathematical minds are the only kind in the 
world. Personally, there is nothing I like better in 


an idle moment than to pore over statistics, tables of 
287 


288 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


population, lists of dates, and so on, although I forget 
them immediately, this habit doubtless having been 
started in my early traveling days, when there was the 
necessity of trying to probe the esoteric intricacies of 
time-tables. In some such ambitious spirit I once 
picked up a Bible lesson for the day. The directions 
were, first to read certain passages. I presume these 
passages had some relation to one another; there was 
doubtless a thread of interest, a theme, which was 
suggested, but which my feeble mind failed to visual- 
ize. I conscientiously read the passages referred to, 
one after the other. At the end of the pamphlet was 
a list of questions, and the idea was, after reading 
the text, to answer offhand all these questions. If 
you want to have the conceit taken out of you, try 
this method of studying the Bible. Was Elijah in- 
vited more than once to eat? What further work 
did the Lord give Elijah to do? Were there other 


prophets at this time in Israel? 


BIBLICAL STUDY TRAFFIC 


To save my life I could n’t recall how many times 
Elijah had been invited. The trouble was that when 
I read the text I didn’t know beforehand that this 
question was going to be asked. Without the slight- 


THE BIBLE 289 


est ambition to encroach in any way upon the territory 
of the efficiency experts, I should say that the best 
thing to do would be to read the questions first. 
Then, when you read the text, you will be certain to 
get the answers right. Doesn’t that strike anybody 
as reasonable, assuming, of course, that the idea is to 
get the answers right? 

As for the other work that Elijah had to do, and all 
the other prophets there were, dear me! surely one 
ought to know these things—afterward—but one 
doesn’t. Your mind gets dizzy. A fairly intelligent 
man, able to read and support his family in compar- 
ative ease, can have ten counted over him so easily, 
after being the victim of a process like this, that you 
could n’t induce him to read the Bible again without 
a mandamus—whatever that may be. 

If the experts had their way, however, I make no 
doubt that, in the course of time, they could produce 
a body of standardized Bible readers who would 
know, after one perusal, how many prophets true 
and false there were in Israel and the number of 
times Elijah dined in a given period. The main 
difficulty at present is that human life is short, and 
Bible reading has not been made compulsory. 
Quite a number are taking advantage of this latter 
fact. 


290 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


THE APPROACH 


The approach to the Bible has been made so diff- 
cult that so long as one does n’t have to go along, one 
simply doesn’t. The people who don’t are always 
in the majority. And to add to their numbers ap- 
pears to be the sole object of the people who do. 
The people who do have invented so many ways of 
studying the Bible that altogether too few care to 
read it any more, and they have invented so many 
ways of consuming time that it is becoming increas- 
ingly difficult for many of us to develop our mental 
resources beyond the point of actual necessity. The 
movies involve no sort of exertion: their semi- 
darkness even relieves us of the distraction of 
submitting to light vibrations other than those that 
come from the picture. We do not have to meet 
the movies half-way. They do it all. There we 
sit, immovable and wholly inert, our minds _be- 
ing varnished with a veneer of emotionalized and 
sentimentalized action in what is regarded as proper 
proportions for profit. And this is true of other 
things; our bodies are carried hither and thither by 
motor-cars without exertion: our opinions are deliv- 
ered daily in assorted lots—we have but to make a 
selection, as one picks out his favorite bonbon from 
the confectioner’s gilded box. Thus in all respects, 


THE BIBLE 291 


except those in which we are obliged to maintain our 
bare existence, we are a majority who don’t. If we 
could hire people to breathe for us, as we hire them to 
think for us, we would certainly do it. 


HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL 


Nevertheless, there is hope. Most Americans have 
a practical strain, a souvenir of pioneer days, and if 
you can offer them some practical inducement for 
doing a particular thing, they will invariably respond. 
The trick is to put it to them in such a way that they 
will see it; and this is what I am trying to do. 

I firmly believe that the Bible is not only readable, 
but can be made readable for great numbers of peo- 
ple, if they can rid themselves of systems and all 
the things that have been written in its favor. How 
do I know this? Because I’m like the unlettered 
sailor who, when he was asked how he knew the 
world was round, replied that he had been round it. 

First, then, as to the inducement. I must make this 
evident, or my whole case for the Bible falls to the 
ground. Todo this I have only to call upon our com- 
mon experience, and our common experience shows 
us that nothing is of any value to us that has not come 
from our own exertions. What we accomplish with 
our own hands, hearts, and minds is what draws the 


292 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


most regular interest, and is what we rejoice in most. 
If we permit ourselves to be overcome by dull routine, 
to be enslaved by those custom-made time-killers by 
which we are surrounded, then we are nothing better 
than dope-fiends. An acutely sane English writer, 
Arthur Clutton Brock, in commenting upon this tend- 
ency, once remarked that: 


We must be aware of the world and not merely of our 
own homes. And those who say that if each of us performs 
his private duty, all will be well, are talking mischievous 
nonsense. 


Just as the routine of home and private affairs 
transfixes us, to the exclusion of civic duties, so do 
we become fixed in the network of factory-made pleas- 
ures and opinions that surround us. This modern 
mental and moral narcosis actually and quite natu- 
rally prevents us from realizing what we are missing, 
except only in part. But consider for a moment what 
it is that is really saving us; for even as bad as our 
condition thus appears to be, we are actually saved by 
our intangible impulses for better things, obscured as 
they sometimes are. In reality, by a sort of subcon- 
scious process, we are constantly and half uncon- 
sciously throwing off these narcotics: so we do attend 
public meetings, we do make and start out upon 
good resolutions, we do read at intervals a good book, 


THE BIBLE 293 


we do go to church—in short, like half-lame flying- 
machines that bump along the ground, we are con- 
tinually pointing upward, trying to rise, and this 
very tendency keeps us from becoming utterly en- 
slaved. We seem to know instinctively how much we 
miss, though unable to correct ourselves. 

Says Dean Inge: * 


Secularists ask impatiently what Christianity has done or 
proposes to do to make mankind happier, by which they 
mean more comfortable. The answer is (to put it in a 
form intelligible to the questioner) that Christianity in- 
creases the wealth of the world by creating new values. 
For example, if women were sufficiently well educated not 
to care about diamonds, the Kimberly mines would pay no 
dividends and the rents in Park Lane would go down. 


Now the truth is that there is no way in which more 
new values of the right kind can be created than by the 
reading of the Bible, and it is practically impossible 
to adumbrate the sensations one gets out of it when it 
is read in the right way. This is because all of our 
conscious acts come through language. We can not 
think without words: words are the basis of every- 
thing we see and feel and do: and the Bible is the 
greatest collection of words in the world. Is it inter- 
esting? Well, probably you think you have read 


1“Qutspoken Essays.” 


294 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


something new when for days you have followed in 
the newspapers an “up-to-date” tragedy. If you 
think that, take five minutes off and read the second 
chapter of the second book of Samuel. 


IGNORANCE 


In a running race to see who can mispronounce the 
greatest number of Biblical names in a given time, 
Ill take my chances with anybody. When I once 
get a name, like Ahab, fixed in my mind, I have to 
keep reading it over and over and round about it, 
to feel that I could mention it casually, even in the 
presence of a Sunday-school superintendent, without 
getting stage-fright. That was what kept me from 
reading the Bible at all in the beginning. I was 
afraid that I might get talking about it inadvertently 
to some one, and he would know more about it than 
I did. Then I got reckless, and began to read it for 
pleasure, just as if I didn’t care how little I could 
learn from it. I discovered that the Bible has sey- 
eral good points, which should appeal to practical 
and ignorant people like myself. 

It is the most economical book in the world, for it 
renders all other books superfluous. 

You can get it in almost any size you want. It 
comes so small it will fit into a waistcoat pocket. If 


? 


THE BIBLE 295 


you want something to carry around for exercise, it 
comes up to ten or fifteen pounds. 

So far as I have been able to discover, there is n’t 
a single word in it that you can not understand as soon 
as you look at it. 

Any part of it gets better every time you read it. 

Any one who has had the strength and courage to 
read thus far is probably bursting with a feeling of 
premature revenge over the expectation that | am now 
going to spring upon an unsuspecting world a new 
system of my own of reading the Bible. Be easy in 
your mind. I am not. A gentleman should be de- 
fined as a man who does n’t insist upon your eating 
the same things or reading the same books that he 
does. 


ONLY ONE WAY 


My principal discovery about the Bible, indeed, as 
far as I am concerned, is that the only way to read 
it is without any system. My own experience, as I 
intimated in the beginning, is that you can not get 
something for nothing and that a thing has value in 
proportion to the time and thought one is willing 
to put into it. Iam by no means for destroying the 
newspapers, the movies, or the motor-car. All these 
things, I suppose, are necessary as backgrounds in 
which we can build up our characters by knowing 


296 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 
when and how to resist them. As Mr. W. S. Gilbert 


has so delightfully observed, one must not rely al- 
together upon an exclusive diet of candy. To be- 
come addicted to a routine, to a particular sort of 
home life, to any habit that tends to make us self- 
centered and takes away from our power to be of 
service to the world at large—this is not necessarily 
immoral—it is stupid. There was a woman in New 
Jersey who served a long term in jail, when it was 
discovered she was not guilty of the crime for which 
she had been imprisoned. She refused to leave the 
jail, however, on the ground that she knew no other 
way of life, and, as the authorities had fixed this 
method for her, there was doubtless on their part an 
ebligation to keep her on as she was. Many of us 
are no better off than this woman. We have put our- 
selves in jail for life, and don’t know it. 


A GREAT OCCUPATION 


When I found I could read the Bible according to 
my own lights, I found I had an occupation that cre- 
ated more new values for me than anything I had ever 
tried. Perhaps the principal difficulty one meets in 
reading it, at first, is the fact that it is so closely 
written. A modern writer (just as I am doing now, 
shame on me) is always at some pains to explain his 


THE BIBLE 297 


idea. He tries, just as they do in the movies, to 
make it as easy as he can for the reader. This is, of 
course, due to competition, the one who succeeds in 
making it easiest or most obvious for the reader being 
the one who has the greatest number of readers. 
That is why Harold Bell Wright has more readers 
(at present) than H. L. Wilson. But the Bible is 
not competing with any other book. It is the bed- 
rock foundation of all our literature, and therefore 
if you want to know anything, the Bible is where you 
must go to find it. It contains all the latest news. 
No newspaper man, no sage or scientist, no phi- 
losopher or statesman has ever been able to get up 
early enough in the morning to get ahead of the Bible. 
Being so compactly written, without a superfluous 
word, it cannot be overlooked, and it must be read 
without any thought that one may acquire a reputa- 
tion for having read it; and that is why it cannot be 
read by any method or system. It is too big for sys- 
tems; it comprehends man himself and all his 
thoughts. It isa great gallery of superb human por- 
traits. 

It must also be remembered that science itself has, 
by disposing of time, reinforced in the most dramatic 
manner the whole chronology of the Bible. We can 
now understand perfectly that this chronology is 
only a complete record of man’s consciousness. 


298 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


SCIENCE AGAIN TO THE BAR 


Let us consider science a little further. Let us re- 
member that science, having disposed of matter, 
leaves us looking out upon a world of utter illusion, 
upon a world of nothing. Thus we are forced back 
—are we not? to look inward, to search our inner- 
most souls, and there to find—God. And it is this 
God, who dwells within us, who is the Author of this 
complete book of life. The whirling world about 
us is very much like the motion picture thrown on the 
screen, back of which is—nothing! Where did the 
picture come from? Out of our consciousness, in 
the beginning, because we should not now be able to 
perceive it unless there had existed within our con- 
sciousness the necessary conditions of, receptivity. 
We built up this illusion of the world very slowly, 
from childhood. So we build up the spiritual con- 
tent. We break through our original natures, grad- 
ually, into the light—and into the realm of love. 

It is through the constant reading of the Bible 
that we learn not only how to love universally, but 
we learn how to emerge into the presence of its Great 
Author. The bars that lead to every path of thought 
and divine aspiration are let down, and we finally 
come to see what the real issue is, for this is what the 
Bible gives us. We see that what we are fighting for 


a —— an 


THE BIBLE 299 


is Reality, the reality of the spiritual life that, in its 
higher development, transcends the material world, 
and gives us the final triumph over the world of un- 
reality, which even now the scientists are proclaim- 
ing to us, as if they had discovered something that 
the Bible did not teach us. Thus all things move in 
circles and we always come back to—God. 


WHAT WE GAIN 


To be specific in a spiritual sense, the great gain 
in reading the Bible, as a definite and practical help 
to the solution of our personal problems (no matter 
what these are) lies in this fact: Our moments of 
deepest discouragement are due quite largely to a 
feeling of utter loneliness. We cannot tell our 
troubles to others, any more than they canto us. We 
have tried this and it does n’t work. 

Still, it is true that in our moments of deepest dis- 
couragement, our greatest source of strength is the 
knowledge that others are going, or have been, through 
the same thing and pull through. This sustains us. 
We are one of a vast company. When, therefore, 
we pick up the Bible and read in the plainest terms 
and the purest English an accurate description of 
our own secret struggles, the power thus opened to 
us is something which only those who have experi- 


300 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


enced it can realize. Every note of discouragement 
we have, and every aspiration, will be discovered mir- 
rored for us in the Bible. Frequently the direct per- 
sonal messages we get are startling in their simple 
directness. 

We may consider it as literature and as a kind of 
character guide. But it is much more than this. In 
the light of one’s deep spiritual experiences, its divine 
source cannot be questioned for an instant. 


THE INDIVIDUAL PROBLEM 


In this chapter the author once again reverts to the In- 
dividual Problem, and, in a series of questions and answers, 
furnishes a kind of guide to the true spiritual life, showing 
its necessity. 


THE INDIVIDUAL PROBLEM 


Ir we compare the spiritual life to an ideal tour, 
and use a blue-book as a commentary, we shall begin 
by stating that it is first absolutely necessary for you to 
know how to drive your car, and the act of conversion 
is the parallel of this. Conversion is understanding. 
You discover suddenly that you have an enormously 
extended power which may take you easily over every 
grade, but which, unless you use caution and skill, 
with your still imperfect sense of direction, may dash 
you to pieces. This is no criticism of the power, 
which you recognize as universal. It is only that a 
small part of it has been intrusted to you, with certain 
privileges. It is then up to you to use it in the 
right way. What you do with your power means 
everything. There may be others with you, but you 
must not allow them to distract your attention. Your 
road-map is in front of you, but you realize that it 
is upon your own eyes, your own courage, your own 
accumulated experience that you must rely in all 


cases. 
303 


304 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


IT IS YOUR PROBLEM 


You see other Christians, who have never learned 
to drive, being driven by hired chauffeurs. Do you 
wish to be carried in that manner? You do not. 
At the end of the route is some one who will ask you 
a few leading questions, among others, “What right 
have you to depend upon other people for your 
progress?” You are truly and practically a spirit- 
ual vagabond. 

This illustration has its defects, and I am sin- 
cerely sorry that I cannot provide a better one. So 
far as the spiritual life is concerned, we literally 
depend upon nothing. We sit still and work out our 
problems alone, with God’s help, And the first 
thing we see is that we are God in the sense that our 
limited perfection is part of the unlimited perfection 
of God. 

What happens thereafter is this: every problem 
which comes up in our daily lives, no matter what 
it is, can thus be solved by ourselves alone. 

This is an enormous gain. 

Not every problem is thus solved immediately. 
That would be impossible, because one of the re- 
quirements of our progress is that we shall labor 
and wait. We must learn patience. But little by 
little, as we go along, we come to find out where the 


THE INDIVIDUAL PROBLEM 305 


source of power is, and to fit ourselves so that it may 
flow through us. This is a very wonderful gain; 
indeed, it is so inexpressibly wonderful that the mere 
contemplation of it must fill us with awe. 

Consider for a moment what it means to have 
every problem solved, here or hereafter, so that there 
nevermore can be any doubt of it. 

That is precisely what happens. The price? 
Self-abnegation. Absolute surrender. Living on 
the spiritual plane by keeping yourself unspotted 
from the world and this without strain. 

The real nature of suffering is but little under- 
stood. When we know what suffering means and 
that it is the only medium through which we can gain 
peace, we welcome it. 

Suffering breeds patience and patience breeds 
hope. Read Romans and you will get the answer. 


IT FILLS ALL REQUIREMENTS 


The spiritual life furnishes en occupation which 
at once removes one from all other occupations, no 
matter what they are—work, pleasures, intellectual 
diversions, etc. It seems almost incredible that this 
should be so, yet it is so. 

Also, the spiritual life, in addition to the occupa- 
tion referred to, adds all other things instead of tak- 


306 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


ing them away. It is by far the easiest life there is. 
It is a life absolutely devoid of all personal sense of 
responsibility. This may be difficult to understand, 
yet possibly a few words will make it plain. 

We know that God is running the world because 
we have discovered that we are a part of God our- 
selves, and the knowledge of this fact enables us to un- 
derstand that God is supreme. Therefore, we have 
no sense of anxiety over anything. Furthermore, we 
have no sense of anxiety about ourselves. We know 
that nothing can hurt us, and that we do not sin, be- 
cause sin itself is no part of us. If we do appear to 
sin, we immediately put it up to God. We are chas- 
tened through the gradual uncovering of our igno- 
rance. 

How is this accomplished? 

By prayer. We are dealing and are in constant 
communication with headquarters. There are any 
number of times—even during one day—when we 
are not sure what to do. When we are not sure of 
any action to take, then the rule is do nothing—we 
just leave it to God. 

Don’t you make mistakes? 

Constantly. But we don’t worry about them, be- 
cause this is our means of progress. We are pro- 
gressing all the time. 

How do you know this? 


THE INDIVIDUAL PROBLEM 307 


By the fact that we are becoming less and less de- 
pendent on material things. 

Suppose you are suddenly confronted by some 
great calamity—well, say a death, or a loss of for- 
tune? What then? 

We suffer just like any one else. But the differ- 
ence between our suffering and others is simply that 
we know, even in the very intensity of it, that it will 
pass. Furthermore, we know why it is. 

But if this is the case, and you go on suffering, 
from one suffering to another, without end, what is 
the ultimate gain? 

The ultimate gain, and the immediate gain, over 
the former blind suffering is so great as not to be 
defined in words. The former suffering led or might 
easily lead to self-destruction, even fractionally or 
wholly (bodily). This suffering we endure now is 
accompanied with a parallel peace which indeed 
passeth all understanding. 

But are you never irritable? Do you never lose 
your temper? 

Oh yes. We are precisely like any one else out- 
wardly. No one would notice wings sprouting on 
us. From the outside the difference is so slight as 
apparently not to be noted. Above all, we are not 
superior. Oh no! We are just the reverse. Not 
that we are inferior, but we come to recognize that 


308 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


we are nothing so far as our material lives are con- 
cerned, and are everything so far as we are a part 
of God, and we know that all others, even those 
whom we formerly hated, are just as much a part of 
God as we are. 

But what do you do when you want to fill in your 
time? If you don’t really enjoy material things, 
and the spiritual life is not to be described, what can 
this occupation be which is declared so fine, if there 
is apparently nothing to it? 

The answer to that question is really very simple. 
Our occupation consists in an absolutely new concep- 
tion of all material things. Thus the ugliest person 
in the world, formerly, may now easily be beautiful. 
All things are changed for us. The bad, the vulgar, 
all the destructive things, are for us blanks. We see 
them no more. We see only the beautiful. 

And our occupation is one of constant praise. We 
praise our Creator, not in any psalm-singing lan- 
guage, but with all the discernment in us, and at the 
same time we express our gratitude. We do this 
by trying in every way to follow the teaching of 
Christ. Occupation! What could be more com- 
plete? 

You say that when a problem presents itself, you 
put it up to God. Just what is meant by that? Ex- 
plain the process. 


THE INDIVIDUAL PROBLEM 309 


All that happens is this: On the spiritual plane 
everything is determined by our previous thought. 
That must first be understood, and can only be under- 
stood, by experience. For instance, a fear we may 
have to-day will manifest itself later on in some ma- 
terial manner, usually discordant. Therefore, what 
we think now is all important. When confronted by 
a problem, the first thing we do is to dismiss it. By 
this I meant that we throw it off on God. Not that we 
shirk it! On the contrary, we meet it squarely by 
facing it spiritually. We literally hold dominion 
over it by thus facing it. The next thing we do is to 
wait. That is, we allow God, seemingly, to do the 
work. Actually, nothing is done at all, the reason 
for this being that the problem is really no problem. 
It actually solves itself by being thus ignored. There 
is never any answer to silence. Anexample? Sup- 
pose you have a note to meet to-morrow morning, and 
no money to meet it with? Well, you do nothing. 
You leave it to God. Now what happens depends of 
course on your previous action, or apparent action. 
What was the condition of things previously which 
made it necessary for you to give a note? Why 
did you not provide for the payment? You say that 
circumstances were such, etc. Very well. Remem- 
ber that now you are absolutely in the hands of God. 
Did you do wrong previously? Then you must suf- 


310 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


fer. Do not be afraid to suffer. Nothing can pos- 
sibly hurt you. If there has been error in your 
thought, then this must be removed. God will re- 
move it if you let him alone. If the note is not paid, 
that is right. So the answer will be made to this 
question later—possibly in a month, possibly in six 
months. Then, looking back on the whole affair, 
you will see quite plainly that by leaving it to God, 
the best solution came. What that solution may be 
I can not tell you, because I am not, nor can any one 
be, familiar, as God is, with all the circumstances. 

Do you believe in a personal God? 

Certainly; and yet that is not precisely, or even 
adequately, the answer to that question. Much dif- 
ficulty has been caused by this, and I shall therefore 
try to make it plain. The first thing to be under- 
stood is that God is everything. He is all things to 
all men. He is a person to love more intimately, 
more intensely, than any one you have ever known. 
But this is only one phase of your thought. The 
truth is that God is a spirit; he is universal, he is all 
there is. There is nothing else but God. Therefore, 
any way that you choose to think of Him is the right 
way, if it be with love. 

But is n’t this too personal on your part? Is n’t it 
wrong to be thinking so much about yourself? Also, 
why should you give up all material things, many of 


THE INDIVIDUAL PROBLEM a Hid 


which are wholesome? Besides, why should we give 
up those we love, our families and friends? 

These objections, and many others, will constantly 
assail you as you go along. They are merely the 
voices raised by your own erroneous thoughts. In 
each case the answer is the same. You “give up” 
only in the sense that you come to realize the nothing- 
ness of all matter, and this includes the false person- 
alities of those you love. What you really do is to 
give up evil, and retain good. ‘Take some one you 
love very dearly. At present, you are so firmly 
attached to him that the hidden thought that you 
may lose him is constantly present. What you are 
doing is to worship him as a false image. You do 
not understand yet that what is real in him never can 
be separated from you in-any degree. The moment 
you give up the material part in him, however, and 
refuse to bow down to it, or be-bound by it in any 
way, then all fear of separation ceases, because you 
know that both he and you are immortal, and can not 
be separated by bodily death. 

Well, if this is true of one person close to you, how 
about others not so close? 

It is true of every one. In conversion, what hap- 
pens is that you put off a sense of unreality, and en- 
ter into spiritual contact with a vast host of those who 
are immortal. 


312 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


How do you actually know this to be true? 

You gradually come to know it spiritually. No 
matter where you go or what you do, you are a part, a 
reflection of all the host of heaven. You feel their 
presence spiritually. Moreover, after you have de- 
veloped a sense of the spiritual, in many little ways 
which I cannot explain in material language, it is 
manifested to you that you are only one of many in 
the spiritual universe. Understand that this is not 
spiritualism, which generally means the materializa- 
tion of bodies. 

But do you mean to say that with all the spiritual 
development you have just outlined, you can still 
go on just the same, doing every-day things in the 
same old way? 

Certainly: only, to be truthful, you really do them 
in a new way. It is largely a question of common 
sense. Real Christianity is the quintessence of com- 
mon sense. Christ was the most sensible man who 
ever lived. He always brushed aside everything but 
the essential point. 

Well, I wish you would explain about his miracles. 
If he raised people from the dead actually and in- 
cluding himself, and if, through the spiritual law 
he thus demonstrated, people are still being healed 
of all kinds of diseases, why is it that any one dies, 
and why is it that even the healers themselves get 


THE INDIVIDUAL PROBLEM 313 


things the matter with them which they cannot cure? 

These questions are the main stumbling-blocks to 
the great majority of those who stand upon the thresh- 
old of the spiritual life, who really want to enter, but 
are deterred because they seemingly can not be an- 
swered. Yet the answer, to those who are already en- 
tered, is perfectly simple. One answer is this: Put 
aside all your doubts, take a chance, have faith, and 
just make up your mind you will trust God enough for 
the present until you finally understand. If you do 
this, it is very much like walking on the water. Try 
it and you will find it works. That, I repeat, is one 
answer. Another answer is, you must first come to 
understand the nothingness of all matter. This is 
not easy, considering that it is from matter your con- 
sciousness has risen; it is like repudiating the source 
of your consciousness. This understanding can come 
only very slowly, by meditation, suffering, constant 
readjustment. To the logical material mind, that is 
to say, the literal mind, science has recently provided 
a great help, as I have shown elsewhere, by demon- 
strating how matter is composed of invisible electrons. 
When you finally get firmly fixed in what, for con- 
venience sake, I may term your spiritual conscious- 
ness, this idea that matter has no validity (and by 
matter I mean flesh tissue, visible personalities, etc. ), 
you will then see the miracles of Christ in their true 


314. WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


light. You will understand that when he healed 
sight and hearing, when he cast out devils, when he 
healed paralysis, etc., he was merely restoring to the 
persons treated a real sense of their spiritual selves, 
while at the same time destroying a false sense of 
imperfection. In order to make the demonstration 
complete, he voluntarily submitted his material self 
to bodily destruction, and then, in the resurrection 
of his body, revealed the nothingness of matter in 
the only way possible. Now so far as others are 
concerned, how they are healed, or why they may 
suddenly succumb to certain so-called diseases, we do 
not know, because all others are illusions. Your 
entire concern, in the answer to this supreme ques- 
lion, is with yourself alone. If you are afflicted with 
a so-called disease, your faith can cure you of it. 
Try it and see. When it doesn’t work, this is due 
to some thought imperfection. And that is all you 
need know. 

Does this mean that the mind controls the body? 

No. There is a great deal of popular confusion 
about this question also, and I may as well explain 
it now. Both mind and body, in their ordinary 
working, proceed from material sources. So far as 
the mind itself is concerned, and by this I mean the 
brain, the consciousness which appears to be the re- 


THE INDIVIDUAL PROBLEM 315 


sult of its workings has been built up slowly over 
thousands of years, and if it were possible to do so, 
we could determine what every man is thinking 
merely by his antecedents, environment, education, 
etc. Allied with this are the various organs of the 
body which appear to respond to the action of the 
brain. Both, however, are dependent upon each other, 
both are bound together by common ancestral ties. 
(I am now writing from the material, scientific stand- 
point.) This being the case, neither can control the 
other, because neither has any independent power of 
its own. It has been stated that a sudden fright will 
take away the appetite, and that certain thoughts will 
change the tissues and secretions of the body and 
alter its functions. That is true physiologically. It 
is equally true, also, from this point, that if food 
is introduced into the stomach which is quite different 
from what the eater thinks it is, it will likewise pro- 
duce a discordant effect not only upon the body, but 
upon the mind. We cannot separate the two things 
—they go together. Neither controls the other. 
That which controls the mind and the body, however, 
is the unknown quantity which doctors and scientists 
refuse formally to recognize, namely, the spirit. In 
actual practice, the doctor always recognizes the 
spirit. He cultivates a bedside manner, he studies 


316 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


intimately what he terms the “mental” effect upon his 
patient. He insists for instance, that his patient shall 
not worry, not understanding that the kind of worry 
he speaks of is a material affair. 

The moment we come to realize that back of the 
illusory functions of man there is a spirit (referred 
to by the psychologists as the subconscious, the uncon- 
scious or the universal mind), then we enter upon a 
new world of thought. 

But how can you prove all this? 

By practice. That is the way all scientists work, 
as I have already stated. We begin by the hypothe- 
sis that all things must proceed from one source, and 
we call that source the Creator or God. This word is 
symbolic. It is precisely like the x in algebra for 
an unknown quantity. Having made this hypothesis, 
we then promise ourselves that we will adhere to it 
long enough to see whether it is true, or how far we 
must correct it to make it true. We keep on thus 
learning, and correcting, until we finally arrive at the 
invincible conclusion that there is a God, that he is 
universal, that his rule is absolute, and that, if we 
conform to it, we shall become partakers in a glorious 
peace which passeth all understanding. We learn 
that all discord can be melted out by Love, and that, 
if the way seems hard and the process a gradual one, 
this is to try our faith. 


THE INDIVIDUAL PROBLEM 317 


This hypothesis you mention is really conversion, 
is it not? 

No. It is what comes before conversion. The 
whole process of becoming a Christian, or follower of 
Christ, is simple and can be reduced to a few sen- 
tences. First, one becomes either very much dissatis- 
fied or in downright despair with the world one lives 
in. Second, one wonders whether there is n’t some- 
thing better. Third, one begins to ponder this ques- 
tion, becoming receptive to the various creeds and al- 
ternatives offered. Fourth, in this condition, one 
drifts about for a long time in hopeless confusion, 
taking up one belief after another and dropping it. 
Fifth, one’s resolution begins to mount, and the de- 
termination comes to find out for one’s self. Sixth, 
one faces the simple proposition that there must be 
a Creator, and, this being so, he must be all-powerful; 
therefore one decides to try him. This is the dawn- 
ing of the hypothesis. Seventh, quite timidly and un- 
certainly, indeed, almost as a last resort, one starts 
out on the hypothesis. Eighth, one prays. Prayer 
is only a longing. One longs. That is right prayer. 
Ninth, something happens like illumination. It may 
come through some slight incident. But it changes 
one’s whole life. That is conversion. Tenth, from 
this point onward there is no going back. It is truly 
a pilgrim’s progress. 


318 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


You have now made the whole thing so plain, 
whether we care to believe it or not, that we have 
only one more question. Can you offer any sugges- 
tions for guidance after conversion, assuming that has 
taken place? 

I will do so in the next chapter. 


PERSONAL HELPS 


In this chapter the author draws upon his personal ex- 
perience in order to bring home certain meanings. 


PERSONAL HELPS 


THERE is nothing more universally absorbing to 
human beings than a struggle. It is the basis of all 
art. In some form it is present in every master- 
piece. The Conqueror is the chief protagonist of all 
the ages. The business phrase “Competition is the 
life of trade” may be translated into its spiritual 
accompaniment by saying “Struggle is the life of the 
Soul.” 

It seems strange at first that the forces against 
which men have to struggle so persistently should be 
within and not without. Yet such is the case. 

Man constantly creates new forms of weakness 
which tend to undermine his character. These 
flatten him out. He rises from the ruins to still 
newer forms. Man created the Roman Empire. 
Sapped with luxury, it fell, only to be succeeded by 
new forms of power and, in turn, weakness. Man 
always reasserts himself. And what we see over 
the long course in history is the same process 
duplicated in every individual. “A man may be 
down, but never out” is the axiom of humanity. 

By an inevitable paradox, through the weakness 

321 


322 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


of human beings flows the thin stream of power that 
recreates society. Alexander Hamilton, the finan- 
cial genius of a period, can not pay his personal bills. 
Indeed, if we were to draw up a material indictment 
against all the great ones of the earth, they would 
all be found guilty. Power comes through sharp 
contact. It is only by hard rubbing that two sticks 
show heat. 

So the struggle of the individual—your struggle 
and my struggle—is the epitome of the ages. My 
personal experience, briefly continued in what fol- 
lows, is probably no different from the majority. It 
is presented herewith because many others who are on 
the verge of the same experience, or already going 
through with it, may be reinforced by the thought 
that it is common to all. 


AN EXPERIENCE 


The thing which has always kept me going, even 
in my darkest moments, was the thought that I must 
not fail, because there were so many others in the 
same boat. 

But on the very threshold of this record, I want to 
emphasize the fact that at no period, at no moment, 
would I have gone back to BEFORE. The most agoniz- 
ing moment you may experience AFTER is any num- 


PERSONAL HELPS 323 


ber of times better than the most delightful moment 
you may have experienced BEFORE. Before, you 
were an animal, chiefly concerned with eating and 
drinking and making merry. After, you were con- 
cerned with something which cannot well be defined, 
because it reaches out into infinity. All the tribula- 
tion which you may seem to endure, although at 
times it is very real indeed, becomes only incidental. 

When I first began to understand that there was a 
higher power than myself and, in the midst of many 
doubts and difficulties, to believe in Him a little, I 
saw at once the necessity of adopting some sort of 
system in order to know Him better. 

It seemed to me reasonable to suppose that if I was 
giving up such a large part of my time to work and 
to various material activities, I must, if the source of 
my whole Being were to be understood, be willing to 
devote a portion of this time to my Creator. 

This decision, which seems, as I now put it, to be 
so conventional and businesslike, is not only of su- 
preme importance in the spiritual life, but one sur- 
rounded by the greatest difficulty. In order to bring 
out this difficulty into bold relief, it is essential that I 
should say a few words about two of the greatest 
stumbling-blocks to spiritual progress, namely, doubt 
and sensitiveness. 

First, then, about doubt. The moment one at- 


324 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


tempts to cross the threshold that separates the ma- 
terial from the spiritual life, doubt assumes myriad 
forms, some of them bold and simple, and others so 
subtle as to be at first unrecognized, It would seem 
as if all the cleverest people in the world had sud- 
denly been attracted to you, and in every book and 
paper you pick up, or in every voice that you hear, 
you will be told why there is no God, and why there 
is no spiritual life. Besides all this, every form of 
discouragement will present itself. You will try to 
be good, and, apparently, you will succeed. While 
not necessarily looking for any reward, it will be 
reasonable to suppose that there ought to be some 
sort of return from this effort on your part. The re- 
verse will be generally true, however. Every one of 
your fond hopes will be dashed. Here, at random, 
are some of the things which will rise up against you. 


YOU WILL BE TOLD 


That the churches are mostly “bunk,” filled with 
hypocrites. 

That thinking about religion only makes you mor- 
bid, and is a waste of time. 

That if God, or whoever is running the world, was 
a just God, he would not permit so much suffering, 
war, disease, etc., as now persists, and that as all 


PERSONAL HELPS 325 


these things are so widespread, there is no hope of 
your escaping them by trying to placate him. 

That as soon as you make any effort to be better, 
things only get worse, so the best way is to go along 
and not worry. 

This list might be indefinitely extended, including 
the most delicate shades of misgivings. It is enough 
to indicate the trend. 


SENSITIVENESS 


Second, sensitiveness. Among all the phenomena 
of the human consciousness, this is worthy of the most 
careful study and understanding. If we take any 
faculty of the mind, such, for instance, as hearing, 
we shall be astonished to find out its almost unlimited 
possibilities of development. We know that our ears 
are tuned in to only a very small fraction of the vi- 
brations constantly going through the ether. The 
radio shows us this fact very clearly. The radio 
carries around the world thousands of voices which, 
when they are properly amplified through delicate 
instruments invented for the purpose, can be heard 
in thousands of homes. But ordinarily as we go 
about, we are wholly unconscious of these millions on 
millions of waves of sound. Now, in your every-day 
life, if you will give even slight, but systematic, atten- 


326 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


tion to your hearing, you will be astonished to dis- 
cover how it can be trained. In listening to orchestral 
music, at first it is merely a mass of sound, more or 
less pleasing to you in proportion as the players are 
skilled and codrdinated. But after you have had a 
musical training, you will be able to distinguish the 
various instruments and also to note the most trivial 
discords, so that, in listening, your capacity on the 
one hand for enjoyment and on the other for discom- 
fort will be immeasurably increased. The same 
thing is true about spiritual and cultural values. 


SUBTLE DISTINCTIONS 


As we become subjected to educational processes, 
we gradually become more sensitive to distinctions 
which at first have no meaning; that is, we grow more 
cultured. Librarians will tell you that readers who 
begin on trashy books first, will little by little select 
better ones, as their minds become more sensitive to 
words. ‘Thus we see that between the so-called high- 
brow and the lowbrow, both of whom have been so 
much derided in our public press, there is a wide 
gulf. Oftentimes the highbrow may be merely a pos- 
eur, and the lowbrow may know more than he seems 
to; but generally speaking, the man of culture has an 
enormously wider range of feeling than the man un- 


PERSONAL HELPS 327 


lettered, or undeveloped in art or music. In the ma- 
terial world, the great importance attributed to edu- 
cation is not all due to the increased earning capacity 
it gives, but is also due to the mental resources ac- 
quired, which enable us to occupy our minds to the 
very last, when other resources may fail us. All 
this is quite apparent, and it is not necessary to go 
into it any further. But if you will apply this law 
to spiritual development, you will see that spiritual 
sensitiveness is something the possibilities of which 
are so incredible that we may well reflect upon it for 
a moment. 


IT IS A NATURAL PROCESS 


From the outside, casual, and superficial point of 
view, however, there is a criticism of it which must 
here be disposed of. It is that people who devote 
themselves too much to spiritual things get to be 
cranks or fanatics. These lose their perspective. 
Their minds become warped. They think nobody 
else is right but themselves. They tend to become 
reformers, which is the lowest state of man. We see 
people like that around us all the time—people 
who buttonhole us, preach sermons to us, try to make 
us better, or patronize us with a kind of deadly and 
always offensive zeal. All this sort of thing is coun- 


328 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


terfeit, spurious. The kind of sensitiveness which I 
am now defining is precisely the same spiritually 
which we get physically in the development of the 
hearing or the eyesight. We begin to see and hear 
things which we never even suspected were there. 
Moreover,—and this is very important to remem- 
ber—our passion for accuracy keeps pace with this 
increased vision. Merely because we are entering 
upon an unknown and invisible world, a world which 
we have been repeatedly told by skeptics and scien- 
tists does not exist, is no reason why we should allow 
ourselves to be fooled. We are not going to take any- 
thing for granted. 

Our spiritual sensitiveness, therefore, increases 
progressively as we become more intimate and ac- 
curately acquainted with the ways of God—ways that 
constantly elude us, ways which seem at times past 
finding out, and yet which we do come to see at last 
are the only ways worth trying to find out. 


AS TRUTH GROWS, WE SEE MORE CLEARLY 


It thus happens that the errors which in the begin- 
ning we were constantly making and which our ig- 
norance made us unaware of, become sharply sil- 
houetted in our consciousness; this enables us quite 
easily to dispose of them. The crop of them is con- 


PERSONAL HELPS 329 


tinuous. We never can reach the end, because, so 
long as we are here, our feet cling to earth. But we 
know now where we are going, and that makes all 
the difference. 

Sensitiveness such as I write about, therefore, is 
something developed in solitude. It increases by 
meditation, by a gradual enlargement of one’s spir- 
itual horizon. 

But—and here is another curious phenomenon— 
side by side with it comes an increasing indifference 
to conventional standards, and this very indifference 
is the best evidence of the fact that the spiritual de- 
velopment is genuine. We discard, throw aside, the 
human law, right along. We do things which shock 
orthodox people. We are bound, indeed, by no law 
on earth. We are accountable only to God. Thus 
you see the problem of going or not going to church, 
of giving or not giving, or fasting or not fasting— 
all these things are immediately solved, or at least are 
put right up to God to be solved. And neither does 
that mean that we do nothing ourselves. 


ENVY 


For instance—we scarcely realize the part that 
envy plays in our lives; how it trickles in thin subter- 
ranean streams through our thought, poisoning and 


330 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


secretly limiting our energies. We are always auto- 
matically and subconsciously making comparisons. 
Now suppose there is something you long for in- 
tensely, and which another possesses. If, in the light 
of Truth, you come to understand that your mortal 
sense-self is nothing, and that spiritually you are a 
reflection of the universal Mind, do you not see that 
you are actually sharing this longed for possession 
with that other one? Also: when, through your co- 
operation and encouragement, you assist another to re- 
lease the genius within him, do you not see that this is 
your genius as well as his, always bearing in mind that 
we create nothing in ourselves? If therefore, you 
are occupied in any enterprise or business, remember, 
first, that nobody can stop you from sharing in the 
total power revealed through this channel, any more 
than you can prevent others (even if you wanted to) 
from sharing in the power which flows through you. 
And this power is increased in proportion as you grad- 
ually come to understand that you have no personal 
responsibility—you are only a trustee. 


A NECESSITY 


And this is where I take up (after this preface) 
the thread of my personal experience, as it may pos- 
sibly be of service to others. 


PERSONAL HELPS 331 


I found, first, that it was necessary for me to give 
up a part of my time to silence, meditation. And at 
first this was extremely difficult, very much like some 
abhorrent system of home exercise, of which there 
are so many extant. I floundered about a great deal, 
testing out various periods of the day to find one 
which would be uninterrupted. Little by little I dis- 
covered that there was no particular period that an- 
swered. Then it slowly dawned on me that I was 
doing with one day precisely what the average Chris- 
tian was doing with one week, when he set aside Sun- 
day to be good in and all the rest of the week did as 
he pleased. This led me to see that spiritual devel- 
opment is unceasing, that it must necessarily go on 
all the time, that there is not a moment of the day 
or night when there can be any let-up. 

This was a tremendous proposition. At first, the 
hopelessness, the finality of it, staggered me. How 
was I to earn a living? The worst of it was that the 
whole affair had to be carried off in silence, nobody 
was to know anything about it, and, in particular, 
I was to act all the time as if nothing had happened 
to me. 


NOTHING IS EASIER! 


Now the really marvelous thing about all this is 
that, in actual practice, it is the very easiest thing in 


332 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


the world to do. It is more than easy, it is inevitable. 
One simply cannot help doing it when one has got 
going. I hasten to say at once that I should dislike 
very much to give the impression that, in my case, it is 
at all well done. I don’t see how it can ever be well 
done here on earth, when we are all so rooted in ma- 
terial things. But that is beside the question. The 
important thing is to keep at it all the time, and that 
one cannot help. 

Old habits cling. In the old days I used to swear 
in the most accomplished manner. I may break out 
now again at any moment. What of it? I do it 
less and less, because, as my spiritual sensitiveness 
increases, there is no occasion for it. Tranquillity 
must grow, and as tranquillity grows, explosives 
cease. 

What really happens is that one is swimming up a 
stream of consciousness, .and constantly being met 
with floating debris of materialism. Knowing that 
one’s destination is God, indeed that the stream one 
is in, in spite of its floating obstacles and impurities, 
is a stream of life, one pushes these things aside and 
just keeps on. 

Prayer, in its right meaning, is simply the constant 
consciousness of the immediate presence of God, and 
that is all that I mean by this matter of spiritual con- 
trol, This spiritual control is as constant as one can 


PERSONAL HELPS 333 


make it, through day and night, and one’s work goes 
right on, one’s ordinary life goes right on, without 
interruption, only the whole mass of it is now on a 
higher plane. I discovered, indeed, that my work, 
instead of suffering, was so much easier and better 
done that the contemplation of increased accomplish- 
ment filled me with awe. It seemed to me that 
whereas before I had been doing it myself, now it 
was being done for me. 


DON T BE DISHEARTENED AT FIRST 


If, after reading what I have written, you care to 
try this method of constant spiritual attention, you 
will find at first that you are always lapsing. You 
may get up in the morning with the best intentions. 
You say to yourself: “I will think about God all 
day. I will feel that he is with me all the time.” 
Then you will forget, and at night, so busy have you 
been, you will be overcome with a feeling of remorse 
that not once have you followed your resolution. 

Do not let this trouble you too much. 

I have been at it a long time, and I lapse constantly. 
Every one does. The great thing in the beginning is 
the intention, and then, little by little, you will get 
into the habit of recovering yourself spiritually at 
all moments of the day and night. 


334 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


The Children of Israel, you know, were guided by 
a pillar of fire. Well, you will carry a spiritual 
torch in your hand. It will keep going out and you 
will keep lighting it again. At first it will stay out 
for long periods. Then the periods will begin to 
close up. They will never quite close up. But what 
happens is that the habit of closing them grows on 
you more and more. 

The Bible is an asset the importance of which can 
never be overestimated. 

This attitude I am trying to define will be seen on 
reflection to be a reversal of everything you have pre- 
viously thought about spiritual values. It places 
everything spiritual first, and relegates everything 
else to a subordinate position. And this is true of the 
Bible. What I mean is that the Bible comes first, 
not last. Yet here reserve your judgment until the 
idea is explained more fully. 

Remember that the great controversy about whether 
the Bible is true or not, whether it is inspired or not, 
in common with all other theological questions like 
it, has nothing to do with our case. I subject the 
Bible to the same test to which I subject everything 
else. In actual experience, after conversion, I dis- 
covered that out of it, as I have stated, came more di- 
rect messages, more specific directions, more help, 
or perhaps I should say more sustaining power, than 


PERSONAL HELPS 335 


from any other agency. How then should it be read? 

Never, if you do not feel the need of reading it. 
Most people, apparently, do not feel this need, as they 
never read it. 

It is a true guide to the spiritual life. It is, virtu- 
ally, the only guide. It isn’t so much a question of 
reading it once a day or twice a day, like a daily 
dozen. It is wholly a question of living with it. 

And in doing this, it will gradually come to you 
that you yourself are David, you are going over the 
same road traversed by the Children of Israel. 

There are two things in the Bible which, if your 
spiritual life is correct, you will study and follow all 
the time. You will do this because you will feel the 
constant need. One is the Ten Commandments, and 
the other, the Sermon on the Mount. The spiritual 
meaning of these two great pillars of light will gradu- 
ally come to you. The commandments, when under- 
stood spiritually, do not entail any prohibitions. 
They are mileposts of materialism. 

The third part of the Bible, which has more sus- 
taining power than any other, except those placed 
first, is the Psalms. One cannot escape, nor does one 
want to escape, reading the Psalms constantly. 


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THE LAST WORD 


In this chapter the author completes his circle of in- 
quiry and analysis, and shows that every Individual can- 
not escape the consequences of his own acts; also that Amer- 
ica is in danger, and can only be saved by an awakening 
on the part of all individuals. He further shows the hap- 
piness and peace of the spiritual life, based on a union of 
patriotism and self-surrender. 


THE LAST WORD 


Apam and Eve are permanent symbols of human- 
ity. If for a moment we will abandon all idea of 
time and picture America as the Garden of Eden on 
a large scale, we shall see ourselves more clearly in 
the light of truth. 

This Garden of Eden of ours, literally, is a prom- 
ised land, flowing with milk and honey—and oil. It 
is a land peculiarly favored, because of its isolation 
and natural resources. Thus self-supporting, and 
protected hitherto by wide wastes of water from the 
attacks of predatory nations, with extraordinary 
rapidity it has achieved a notable distinction among 
all other nations, being easily the richest and most 
prosperous. Settled originally by dour Pilgrims 
and Puritans of forbidding aspect, iron charac- 
ters, and grim religious convictions, it has become 
one of the most successful self-governing countries 
in the world, having been able thus far to re- 
sist that kind of slow disintegration which comes 
from material satiety. This has been quite largely 
due to the fact that the inhabitants, up to the 


present period, have been occupied in developing 
339 


340 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


their enormous resources, this occupation keeping 
them absorbed and, in a sense, fairly sanitary. 

Thus America, with a Nordic background of sus- 
tained character-strength, has held its own and suc- 
ceeded in developing a racial personality, which 
stands out in bold relief. From its town meeting has 
flowered a kind of genius in self-government which, 
in spite of many deterrent elements, has given it a 
peculiar stability. 

Its almost miraculous separation from the parent 
stem (due to a large extent to the friendly help of 
France in a crisis), the labored birth of its constitu- 
tion, the emancipation of its slaves, the victory of the 
Union, and, more recently, the restraint shown after 
the destruction of the battleship Maine in Havana 
Harbor, its sober deliberation and entrance into the 
World War, its self-searching and establishment of 
prohibition, these achievements, and many more, 
show, among all peoples, an unusual quality and 
spirit. America has great traditions, great ac- 
complishments, great men back of it. 


THE REVERSE SIDE 


On the other hand, at this moment there are many 
signs of disintegration. We foster ten million illit- 
erates, while we boast of our educational system. 


THE LAST WORD 341 


We exploit children in factories for commercial 
purposes. Our record of crime and our lynchings 
are the constant derision of peoples who are in 
many other respects quite inferior to us. Our pres- 
ent leaders in all branches of activity—politics, let- 
ters, or religion—do not inspire confidence, and in 
particular, too many of our newspapers and _ period- 
icals encourage sensation and indecency. Tran- 
quillity is almost, if not quite, unknown in our homes. 
Noise reigns supreme. Music, art, and letters are 
probably on lower levels among us than ever before 
among a people otherwise so generally intelligent. 
Waste is the order of the day and night. Among us, 
there are undoubtedly great artists in every field, but 
their names are unknown to the mass of the people, 
whose minds are filled with sporting and moving- 
picture stars, who loom thus large in the public eye 
because of the fabulous incomes they are reported to 
earn. Worldly possessions are the sole standard of 
popular acclamation. Nowhere among us is there 
evidence of a longing for the beautiful, hordes of 
people in their leisure hours preferring either to 
desecrate the countryside, or to revel in the clustered 
ugliness of roller-coasters and hot-dog wagons. 
Symmetry, charm, and elegance of design are absent 
from our architecture. Even the picture palaces of 
our rich, with rare exceptions, are generally notable 


342 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


for vulgarity and ostentation rather than beauty. We 
seem to have learned nothing in the art of quiet and 
simple living. 


THE ONE GREAT IDEA 


Yet our country, take it for all in all, has got some- 
thing tucked away inside of it worth living and dying 
for. It has got at least a hold on Liberty. Plato, 
who, as we look back on our receding historical hori- 
zon, still looms largest because he contributed to the 
world the beauty of ideas,—and this wholly sepa- 
rated from the ecclesiastical sentimentality which, 
later on, restricted them to sects,—Plato enables us 
to see the beauty of this idea of Liberty to which 
America, with all its youthful shortcomings, stands 
dedicated to-day as never before. It is in our air. 
The people of Europe know and feel this. That was 
why they fell weeping at the feet of Woodrow Wilson 
when, during the war, he appeared among them. It 
ig a mistake to suppose that they come here solely for 
money, any more than we ourselves, beneath the sur- 
face of our material life, worship money solely. 
They come here—when they can get here—because 
this is a land of practical equality. In presenting 
these violent contrasts in our national life, it should 
be understood that I am merely showing the real and 


THE LAST WORD 343 


the unreal. Just as each one of us has an unreal 
personality of vulgarity, greed, and so on, and a real 
personality made in the image of God, so our coun- 
try, on a large scale, is one of corresponding contrast. 
So much, briefly, for America as a whole. 


THE NORM 


Let us now consider the individual as he exists to- 
day in America, whether he be a naturalized citizen 
or not, who lives on our soil and gets his daily bread 
and cake out of it. How does he compare, so far as 
can be determined, with any other individual who has 
existed at any previous period in the history of the 
world? With an Egyptian landholder in the time of 
Pharaoh? With a Greek olive-grower in the days of 
Pericles? With a medieval serf? It is doubtful if 
his mental occupations, while more various and 
exciting, are any higher. He is still liable for 
conscription, for war appears to be as imminent 
as ever. But in almost, if not quite, all other 
respects he is better off. The chances of his again 
becoming a slave are negligible. He is a free man. 
He takes his part in the councils of the land. There 
is no office, no matter how high (provided he is a cit- 
izen, and, in certain cases, has been born here) to 
which he cannot aspire. Indeed, a list of men born 


344 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


in foreign lands who have come to America and risen 
to distinction would be a striking object-lesson in de- 
mocracy. The American individual shares with his 
fellow-citizens the widespread benefits of an inter- 
change of ideas, of friendly intercourse with his 
neighbors, of all those various blessings which come 
from neighborly intercourse—good feeling, good hu- 
mor, tolerance, and love. 


WHERE THE GAIN LIES 


I think all will agree with me that this difference, 
thus imperfectly outlined, between the individual of 
to-day and the individual of yesterday, is very great. 

But I defy anyone, be he scientist or philosopher, 
biologist or evolutionist, to say that this enormous 
gain is not spiritual. Did we fight for the emancipa- 
tion of our slaves (and that is what we really fought 
for) because we could have had the faintest idea of 
the colossal expansion, the astonishing prosperity, 
which has come to us since the Civil War? Certainly 
not. We fought for an idea, and because it was a 
spiritual idea, this material expansion followed. 
The question is now, whether we are going to destroy 
ourselves in our feverish pursuit of false gods. In 
my opinion, nothing but a miracle can save us, but I 
believe that the miracle will occur. 


THE LAST WORD 345 


WHO CAN DENY THIS? 


Is it not plain, therefore, that our country is bigger 
than each one of us and that the world is still bigger 
than we are? Is it not written in blood in the past 
and scored across the sky of the present, that we must 
save ourselves individually first, before we can save 
our country, and that, if we do not do this, the world 
will be lost? Is it not plain that our cheap and 
trivial occupations, our vulgar trailing of doubtful 
pleasures, our vanities and envyings and concern over 
our individual piles, are as nothing compared with 
the danger that confronts us? 

Is it not plain that your happiness and peace of 
mind, and that of your children, depend in the long 
run upon the happiness and peace of your country, 
and that the two cannot be separated? Once admit 
this to be true, and is it not plain, in the face of the 
mass of evidence I have presented, and which can- 
not be denied by any one of common sense, that 
nothing but a widespread awakening is going to 
save us? 

This is not a question of going to the polls once 
every two years. It is a question of being there all 
the time. 

The individual and the nation are inseparable, I 
repeat. God, the world, and the individual are all 


346 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


inseparable. Thus we complete the sacred circle 
and come back to the place where we started in the 
beginning of this book. 


YOU AND I 


It only remains to be said, so far as you and [ are 
concerned (and if the reader has been patient enough 
to follow me faithfully through these pages, he will 
understand that we are one in our purpose), that our 
whole problem is to deal with Headquarters, and that 
by doing this, it is always given to us to know what 
to do. 

In the nature of things, we can depend upon no- 
body but ourselves. If I have insisted too much 
upon this, it is because in no other way can we attain 
absolute spiritual freedom. The instant we make 
this primal resolution to stand or fall by our own 
efforts, we become dominant. We are backed up 
by God, who first demands of us that we show 
our mettle, our spirit and resolution, and then makes 
us the medium throughout which flow the powers of 
the universe. The very powers of evil, those demons 
of illusion which have previously so frightened us, 
are now made to serve us. It remained for a woman, 
the immortal Teresa, to give us a rule of conduct, 
both practical and spiritual, which reveals a more 


THE LAST WORD 347 


profound insight into the ways of God and man than 
shown by all the long line of philosophers when she 
wrote: 

“Never try to sustain yourself by any human arti- 
fice, or will perish of famine as you deserve. . . . If 
He is pleased with you, those who like you least will 
give you food against their will. . . . To calculate 
what we shall receive from others seems to me like 
reckoning up their riches, and all your care will not 
change their minds nor make them wish to give you 
alms.” 

And again: 

“Everything depends on people having a great and 
most resolute determination never to halt until they 
reach their journey’s end, happen what may, whatever 
the consequences are, cost what it will, let who will 
blame them, whether they reach the goal or die on the 
road.” 


THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW, BUT ONLY TRUE, 
HAPPY WAY 


To those, hitherto indifferent to consequences and 
absorbed by their own material prosperity, who are 
(possibly by some sudden misfortune) suddenly 
faced by this inexorable obligation to make good spir- 
itually, let me say that the way is much easier than it 


348 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


seems. In the first place, no material occupation, 
either of the intellect or the senses, can compare with 
this spiritual occupation thus indicated. Everything 
which belongs to the body, and which has hitherto 
appeared so important, becomes at once incidental. 
Besides, there is no other way. You cannot escape 
the consequences of your absorption in materialism. 
No material occupation, either of the intellect or the 
senses, can compare with the spiritual occupation for 
interest and absorption. Indeed, no comparison is 
possible, for one is death and the other, life. While 
undoubtedly difficulties present themselves, and at 
certain moments one feels absolutely desolate, these 
pass, and the sodden fear about one’s maintenance 
which blights the happiness of so many lives (even 
among those in apparent material prosperity, for 
things are relative) is slowly but irrevocably removed. 
One is maintained, always. Merely as a severely 
practical affair, it will be seen that if you remove 
from any man his sense of fear, if you fill his mind 
with thoughts of love, cheerfulness, self-respect, con- 
fidence, patience, and hope, in place of envy, suspi- 
cion, hatred, and discouragement, it follows that he 
is bound to be more efficient, as a man. It also fol- 
lows that he is bound to be healthier. When, in ad- 
dition, you give him the certainty that there is a God 
and that God sustains him, it is easy to see that such 


THE LAST WORD 349 


a man is immediately lifted up to a much higher level 
than before. Thus religion proves itself by the 
severest practical tests. 


WHAT ARE RICHES? 


Then again, it is important to note that, in this 
world’s goods, we are rich only so far as we are able 
to give out, and not so far as we simply receive. The 
world, as we conceive it in any aspect, material or 
otherwise, is not so bad as we sometimes think. It 
cannot get along without us, if we have what it needs. 
Thus an efficient worker, even if discharged from one 
place, will often be surprised how quickly he will get 
a job somewhere else. What we have we never can 
conceal, because in the invisible world—which is the 
only real world—everything is instantly communi- 
cated. We need to do nothing except to keep our- 
selves constantly up to the scratch. Indeed, it is even 
amusing, when we thus make ourselves internally ef- 
ficient, how anxious others are to secure our services, 
and how they even conceal this from us for fear that 
we shall get too sure about it. The moral law is 
absolute. Boasting is fatal. To the last jot, the 
moral law is based on mathematical principles. It 
is a universal truth that we can receive nothing unless 
we give. The money we possess, therefore, is of no 


350 WHY I AM A SPIRITUAL VAGABOND 


consequence compared with our natural capacities, 
and when the fear of money is removed from us, our 
natural capacities are increased, so that money comes 
tc us as needed. More than we need may be much 
worse than less. If any one doubts that all this is 
true, let him sit down calmly, face and examine him- 
self in honor and honesty, and he will discover that 
he has always received exactly what he deserved. 

Neither let us be deceived by the fancied security 
and apparent happiness of those always restless 
people who appear to be materially successful and 
pass their time in idle pleasures. Constant ab- 
sorption in his material self inevitably limits the 
individual to the narrow horizon of this self. De- 
pendent upon nothing else, his end is certain. He 
disappears like a mist, because there never was any- 
thing real about him. If your arm has become 
atrophied through some defect of circulation, and 
it is cut off and buried, nothing has been taken away 
from you. Neither poverty nor riches, as ideas, have 
any real place in the consciousness of man. 

God is no respecter of persons. Thomas Jeffer- 
son was quite right when he stated that all men are 
born equal. This sublime sentence, even if but 
dimly understood, has done its share in fixing the 
idea of Liberty in the national consciousness. We 
are all equal spiritually, which is the only reality. 


THE LAST WORD 351 


Our capacity to be the medium through which power 
flows can be measured only by our victory over the 
world of the senses. Thus each one of us, no matter 
how humble his occupation or limited his material 
intellect, shares the power of the spirit with the 
greatest. Our mortal bodies are often frail and im- 
perfect structures, racked by the evil let loose 
through the idle gossip of material people; but 
nevertheless, the spirit works through them; witness 
John Bunyan and Robert Burns. 

The sayings of Christ, constantly studied and 
rightly interpreted, furnish an unfailing guide for 
spiritual advancement. 

Only in the way I have indicated—through hu- 
mility, through conversion, through understanding, 
can we as individuals, our country, and the world 
be saved. All things will then be added unto us. 


THE END 





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